PRIVATE  LI&BABVoF  HAPEL  l.niLLJ9 

vVAHD  PlfAPf  l?ETUf2n  IT.FoR  I  FlflD  ~ 
THAT  ALTHOUGH  HANY  OF  HY 
ARE  Po°R  nATMEnATICIAttP.TWEY  ARE 
ALL  VEI?V  Go°D 


<p.p 


THE  CATFISH 


THE  CATFISH 


CHARLES  MARRIOTT 


AUTHOR  OF 


The  Kiss  of  Helen,  The  Lapse  of 
Vivien  Eady,  Etc.,  Etc. 


'For  the  catfish  is  the  demon  of  the  deep, 
and  keeps  things  lively. " 


INDIANAPOLIS 
THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT  1913 
THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 


PRESS  or 

BPAUNWORTM    ft    CO. 

•OOKRINDER8    AND    PRINTERS 

BROOKLYN.    N.   V. 


THE  CATFISH 


2137234 


THE  CATFISH 

CHAPTER  I 

OUITE  early  in  life  George  Tracy  discovered 
that  if  he  were  to  be  reasonably  happy  and 
prosperous  he  must  pretend.  It  is  often  said  that 
children  live  in  a  world  of  imagination.  That  may 
be  true,  but  George  Tracy's  constant  endeavor 
was  to  climb  out  of  his  own  world  of  reality  in 
order  to  gain  precarious  foothold  in  the  world  of 
make-believe  created  by  other  people.  If  he  had 
known  the  word,  he  would  have  said  that  his  diffi- 
culties were  due  to  lack  of  imagination. 

He  first  became  conscious  of  his  defect  when 
he  was  between  four  and  five.  Before  that,  his 
life  had  been  a  matter  of  glimpses  and  snatches  in 
which  illusion  and  reality  were  too  comfortably 
mingled  to  cause  him  any  concern.  It  was  con- 
nected with  the  city  of  Barstow.  In  it  there  was 
neither  night  nor  day,  but  a  confused  twilight  in 
which  his  father  and  elder  brother  walked  godlike 
near  the  ceiling,  while  the  room  hummed  and  shook 


2  THE  CATFISH 

to  passing  traffic.  Other  oddly  assorted  impres- 
sions of  his  life  in  Barstow  were  of  a  woman  walk- 
ing in  the  street  in  her  nightgown,  to  the  mingled 
scandal  and  delight  of  his  sister  and  his  nurse,  of 
the  lamplighter  pushing  up  a  haloed  star  at  him 
from  below,  of  a  shop  where  they  cut  your  hair  in 
one  room  and  sold  —  or,  he  was  persuaded,  gave 
away  —  toys  in  another  as  compensation  for  the 
loss  of  your  ears,  and  of  himself  eating  enormous 
gooseberries  out  of  a  paper  bag.  From  guarded 
allusions  in  later  years  he  was  led  to  believe  that  his 
life  in  Barstow  had  been  rather  shameful. 

The  basis  of  reality  began  for  him  between 
sleeping  and  waking  on  a  soft,  warm,  wet  night  in 
autumn.  It  was  composed  of  the  rushing  of  a 
river,  sudden  shouts,  moving  lights,  the  smell  of 
harness  and  the  taste  of  rain  as,  muffled  to  the  ears, 
he  sat  between  his  father's  and  mother's  legs  on 
the  jolting  floor  of  something  he  knew  to  be  called 
a  "  trap ".  He  understood  that  they  had  nearly 
driven  into  the  river,  which,  from  its  immediate 
and  continued  importance  in  the  scheme  of  reality, 
might  have  been  the  river  of  life.  Until,  rounding 
a  high  wall  in  the  dark,  as  if  a  door  had  been  sud- 
denly opened  upon  reality,  he  felt  and  heard  the  rush 
of  wind  and  water,  he  had  not  fully  awakened  to 


THE  CATFISH  3 

a  personal  existence.  He  dimly  remembered  hav- 
ing been  got  out  of  bed  and  dressed  in  a  strange 
house,  but  all  that  belonged  to  Barstow,  and,  rel- 
atively, to  dreamland. 

The  next  thing  he  remembered  was  waking  in 
his  sister's  bed  in  a  bare  and  immensely  high  room 
flooded  with  yellow  sunlight.  Then  followed  ex- 
ploration, in  his  nightshirt,  of  one  high,  bare,  yellow 
room  after  another,  furnished  principally  with  bell- 
wires,  long  passages  with  stairs  up  and  down  at 
unexpected  intervals,  a  flagged  hall,  and  a  deli- 
ciously  cool  and  queer-smelling  place,  with  slate 
slabs  along  the  whitewashed  walls,  where  the  light 
came  down  green  and  trembling  through  leaves 
and  wire  netting.  This  place  he  understood  to  be  a 
dairy,  and  the  cave  at  one  end,  where  his  courage 
failed,  was  a  wine-cellar. 

Then  for  days,  weeks,  months,  or  it  might  have 
been  a  year,  life  was  too  crowded  for  definite  im- 
pressions. Either  at  the  time  or  later,  George 
learned  that  the  reason  of  the  move  from  Barstow, 
which  for  him  had  all  the  character  of  an  awakening 
into  life,  was  that  his  father  had  been  made  partner 
in  the  bank  he  had  previously  served,  and  conse- 
quently it  seemed,  was  become  a  country  gentleman. 
In  course  of  time  George  had  it  impressed  upon  him 


4  THE  CATFISH 

that  the  social  change  was  less  a  rise  than  a  rein- 
statement after  long  years  of  exile  from  a  proper 
sphere;  a  sphere  the  nature  of  which  was  not  in- 
aptly indicated  to  George's  mind  by  the  fact  that 
his  father  was  able  to  drive  a  trap  in  the  dark; 
but  at  the  moment  he  was  only  conscious  of  the 
change.  The  circumstance  that  fixed  it  in  his 
mind  was  being  taught  by  his  sister  to  say  "  chim- 
ney "  instead  of  "  chimbley  ".  In  Barstow  he  had 
said  "  chimbley  "  unreproved ;  and  this,  combined 
with  his  other  memories  and  their  discouragement 
by  his  family,  went  to  create  the  impression,  which 
deepened  from  this  time  onward,  that  life  in  Bar- 
stow  had  been  rather  shameful. 

The  new  house  was  called  Bourneside.  To 
George  the  name  was  inevitable;  for  the  brook,  or 
"  bourne  " —  playful  diminutives  for  what  in  the 
scheme  of  reality  persisted  a  river  —  formed  one 
long  boundary  of  the  estate  and  supplied  for  him  its 
moral  and  material  atmosphere.  The  other  long 
boundary  was  formed  by  the  road  from  Barstow, 
which,  following  a  high  wall,  kinked  suddenly  at  a 
right  angle  to  cut  off  Bourneside  and  accompany 
the  river.  It  was  this  conspiracy  between  road 
and  river,  aided  by  a  drinking-place  for  horses, 
that  had  nearly  betrayed  George's  father  on  the 


THE  CATFISH  5 

night  of  their  arrival.  You  entered  Bourneside 
through  double  gates  into  a  yard  if  driving,  through 
a  Gothic  door  in  the  high  ivied  wall  that  guarded 
the  front  lawn,  if  on  foot,  from  the  short  lap  of 
road  in  its  quick  turn  to  the  river.  At  the  far  end 
of  the  estate  a  succession  of  fields,  which  took  the 
names  of  their  owners,  covered  the  widening  in- 
terval between  road  and  river  half-way  to  Bar- 
stow. 

George's  gradual  apprehension  of  the  house  and 
its  environment  began  from  the  nursery,  which  was 
at  the  very  top  —  it  became  significant  to  his  mind 
that  there  had  not  been  a  nursery  in  Barstow  — 
and  reached  by  a  thousand  stairs.  His  estimate  of 
their  number  was  not  shaken  by  cold  calculation  of 
windows  from  the  lawn,  which  told  him  that  the 
house  had  only  three  stories  —  not  counting  the 
dairy.  The  very  word  "  story  "  suggested  a  mov- 
ing tale,  and  the  discrepancy  between  outside  and 
inside  only  confirmed  a  sense  of  mystery  in  which 
"  landing  "  became  literally  significant  of  a  momen- 
tary respite  from  perilous  and  toilsome  goings  up 
and  down.  He  thought  of  the  landings,  first  and 
top,  but  particularly  top,  as  clear-lit  and  abiding 
in  a  world  of  shadows  and  change.  From  them 
the  stairs  depended  in  a  manner  that  was  purely 


6  THE  CATFISH 

fortuitous.  At  any  moment  the  stairs  might  play 
him  a  dirty  trick;  might  change  their  direction  be- 
tween going  up  and  coming  down,  stretch  inter- 
minably, trip  him  up,  or  leave  off  suddenly  with 
him  hanging  in  space.  Then  there  were  half- 
landings  at  the  turns;  frail  rafts  of  security,  with 
no  escape  from  sudden  panic  into  the  comfort  of 
rooms.  George  was  quite  a  big  boy  before  he  con- 
vinced himself  that  there  was  not  a  story,  unsus- 
pected by  his  elders  or  denied  by  them,  over  the 
nursery.  Far  down  in  his  bedroom  on  windy  nights 
he  heard  Things  romping  or  quarreling  there,  and 
he  discovered  it  in  dreams. 

The  nursery  had  three  windows  overlooking  the 
front  lawn.  The  road,  vexatiously  hidden  by  the 
high  wall,  came  into  view  where  it  reached  the 
river,  and  from  thence  onward  they  were  visible, 
though  obscured  by  trees.  At  the  junction  of  road 
and  river,  in  line  with  the  Gothic  door,  the  drink- 
ing-place  for  horses  was  flanked  and  explained  by 
a  smithy.  Partly  screened,  he  surmised  deliber- 
ately, by  a  broad  sycamore  that  overhung  the 
Gothic  door,  the  smithy  became  for  George  the 
symbol  of  the  world  with  its  delights  and  dangers, 
from  the  knowledge  of  which  his  elders  would  fain 
have  secured  him.  It  was  a  concentration  of  all 


THE  CATFISH  7 

that  went  on  upon  the  hidden  highway  of  life. 
When  later  he  read  Longfellow  and  came  upon 
the  words,  "  Toiling,  rejoicing,  sorrowing,"  this 
opinion  was  confirmed.  From  language  that 
came  up  to  him  from  the  smithy  when  a  wheel 
was  being  "  bonded  "  in  a  circle  of  fire  'and  steam, 
he  supposed  that  what  went  on  upon  the  hidden 
highway  of  life  was  mostly  bad,  and  he  conceded 
the  wisdom  of  his  elders  while  secretly  rejoicing 
over  its  only  partial  success.  The  left-hand  window 
of  the  nursery,  which  commanded  the  smithy,  was 
always  a  more  or  less  discouraged  enjoyment. 

The  road,  for  one  great  moment  plainly  visible, 
shelved  to  the  drinking-place,  and  this  constant  re- 
minder of  peril  escaped  on  the  night  of  arrival  was 
the  cause  of  George's  extreme  delight.  The  Bourne 
was  hill-fed  and  badly  channeled,  and  at  heavy 
rains  it  rose  with  amazing  rapidity.  The  drinking- 
place  was  one  of  its  earliest  doors  to  freedom,  and 
from  his  nursery  windows  George  had  the  periodical 
joy  of  a  smithy  quenched,  and  horses  all  but  swim- 
ming. Time  after  time  he  woke  to  the  same  for- 
mula — "  The  flood's  out !  "—  shouted  through  the 
house  by  the  earliest  astir;  and  one  winter  evening 
on  setting  out  for  some  village  entertainment,  he 
had  the  supreme  thrill  of  water  lapping  the  stone 


8  THE  CATFISH 

step  from  the  Gothic  door  into  the  road.  The  loss 
of  the  entertainment  was  nothing  to  the  sense  of 
the  water's  having  risen  silently  in  the  dark  while 
they  tea-ed.  In  his  heart  he  knew  that  their  escape 
on  arrival  was  not  forgotten  by  the  Bourne,  and 
years  later  he  came  to  Poseidon  as  an  old  enemy. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  Bourne  the  ground  rose 
rapidly  through  trees  to  be  crowned  by  a  long  bel- 
fried  building,  now  a  farm,  which  at  an  early  age 
George  understood  to  be  Elizabethan.  But  the 
sloping  field  below  had  for  him  other  than  historical 
importance.  It  was  the  scene  of  the  weekly  archery 
meeting.  From  the  conversation  of  his  elders  he 
gathered  that  archery  meeting  was  the  real  test 
of  their  only  partial  emergence  from  the  stain  of 
Barstow.  To  belong  to  the  Archery  Club,  which 
was  captained  by  the  duchess,  was  to  belong  to 
the  county.  The  Tracys  did  not  belong.  Young 
as  he  was,  George  felt  that  his  father  bore  their 
fate  with  indifference,  his  obvious  ambition  being 
the  country  and  not  the  county  gentleman,  and 
his  mother  with  dignity  enhanced  by  regret;  but 
his  brother  Walter  and  his  sister  Amelia,  though 
not  yet  of  an  age  to  suffer  from  the  distinction, 
openly  resented  it.  To  them  the  shining  targets  of 
red,  white,  blue  and  gold,  though  sources  of  in- 


THE  CATFISH  9 

terest,  were  symbols  of  disgusting  and  unreason- 
able pride.  A  banker,  they  said,  was  as  good  as 
the  solicitor  whose  daughter  had  achieved  the 
county  and  the  club  by  marriage,  and  everybody 
knew  that  in  his  youth,  in  another  county,  father 
had  hunted.  George,  though  not  pretending  to 
an  opinion,  was  fiercely  loyal,  and  with  Walter  and 
Amelia  he  was  torn  between  malicious  joy  and 
disappointment  when  rain  prevented  archery. 
Whether  in  fact  or  fancy  it  often  did,  and  "  Archery 
Day  "  became  proverbial  as  a  bad  choice  for  ex- 
cursions. For  a  long  time  George  reckoned  his 
week :  "  Sunday,  Monday,  Archery  Day  — " 

From  the  Archery  Field,  which  had  the  further 
distinction  of  being  the  occasional  scene  of  flower 
shows  and  school  treats  —  so  that  it  kept  up  its 
historical  association  by  remaining  a  tented  field  — 
high  ground  followed  the  tree-veiled  retiring  of 
road  and  river  to  end  on  the  right,  which  was  also 
the  east,  in  a  fir-wooded  brow  that  hid  the  Camp. 
A  dozen  circumstances,  the  footprints  of  old  Rome, 
the  fact  that  the  church  lay  in  that  direction,  and 
the  first  appearance  of  light  there,  conspired  to 
make  the  fir-wood  for  George  the  very  harp  of 
dawn.  On  the  memorable  occasions  when  he 
was  up  at  sunrise  he  was  convinced  that  music 


io  THE  CATFISH 

as  well  as  light  proceeded  from  between  the  straight 
stems  of  the  fir-trees;  golden  music  of  the  kind 
that  was  summed  up  for  him  in  the  word  "  Psalm." 
So  filled  was  his  life  with  the  dayspring  mystery  of 
the  hidden  Camp,  the  frank  pageantry  of  the  tented 
field,  and  the  worldly  joys  —  the  sights,  the  sounds 
and  not  less  the  smells  —  of  the  smithy,  that  he  was 
a  big  boy  before  he  recognized  that,  looking  north- 
east, except  at  early  morning,  his  nursery  received 
no  single  ray  of  direct  sunlight.  He  had  to  out- 
grow childhood  before  he  missed  the  sun. 

Behind  the  smithy  the  river  disappeared  to 
pass  under  an  ascending  fork  of  the  road  and 
embrace  Bourneside.  As  indicated  by  the  menace 
of  the  flood,  the  house  itself  lay  low;  indeed,  from 
the  road,  it  always  seemed  to  George  to  be  cower- 
ing behind  its  ivied  wall  —  an  effect  increased  by  the 
absence  of  sunlight  from  its  own  ivied  front  and 
long,  unbroken  slate  roof  sloping  at  either  end; 
but  all  its  grounds  ascended  from  the  river.  Their 
divisions,  though  not  large,  were  in  George's  mind 
ennobled  by  capitals,  and  they  each  had  a  distinc- 
tive atmosphere.  Thus,  commanded  by  the  nursery 
windows,  was  the  Lawn,  associated  with  the  coming 
and  going  of  visitors,  polite  conversation,  croquet, 
and  picking-up-leaves  as  a  half-respite  from  lessons. 


THE  CATFISH  n 

Since  everything  done  on  the  Lawn  must  be  done 
in  the  company  or  under  the  eyes  of  elders,  it  had 
for  George  the  eternal  atmosphere  of  Sunday  after- 
noon, relieved,  however,  by  the  secret  knowledge 
of  a  sweetbrier  against  the  wall  and  a  climbing- 
place  in  the  northeast  corner  to  a  watch-tower 
where,  concealed  by  a  barberry,  whose  wood  was 
bright  yellow  when  you  broke  and  peeled  it,  and 
whose  coral  and  forbidden  fruit  was  exquisitely 
sharp,  you  commanded  the  road. 

To  the  left,  invisible  from  the  nursery  and  plung- 
ing into  a  shrubbery,  was  the  Side  Lawn.  This  was 
a  natural  escape  from  elders,  the  scene  of  more  sen- 
sible games,  such  as  Pirates  and  Crusades,  and  it  was 
made  wistful  and  disturbing,  you  didn't  know  why, 
by  the  decline  of  day  when  birds  left  their  sentences 
unfinished  and  life  became  an  unanswered  ques- 
tion. The  Side  Lawn,  for  all  its  practical  advan- 
tages, was  always  associated  in  George's  mind  with 
a  hollow  feeling  in  his  stomach,  sanctified  by  the 
smell  of  spiraea. 

From  the  Side  Lawn  you  crept,  if  unob- 
served, into  the  Court,  a  flagged  way  round  the 
back  and  kitchen  sides  of  the  house.  At  the  back 
were  an  illicit  entrance,  the  windows,  fruitful 
by  arrangement,  of  the  pantry  and  storeroom  and 


12  THE  CATFISH 

the  hardly  less  absorbing  window  of  the  laundry. 
Also,  it  was  from  here  that  you  nipped  up  the  steps 
into  the  Orchard.  On  the  kitchen  side  the  Court 
broadened  and  you  stepped  boldly,  as  one  open  to 
question  but  having  legitimate  business,  such  as  a 
drink  of  water  or  to  know  the  time. 

Once  here,  you  dawdled  in  the  sun  until  remem- 
bered and  sent  away.  There  was  not  only  the 
warm  wide  friendliness  of  the  kitchen  window,  con- 
ditioned, it  is  true,  by  the  temper  of  cook,  but  you 
were  already  in  touch  with  the  masculine  politics 
of  the  Yard,  and  within  darting  reach  of  the  coach- 
house, the  stable,  the  hay-loft  —  with  its  ladder 
and  chaff-cutter  —  the  coal-house,  the  workshop, 
and  best  of  all,  the  back  door  into  the  road.  The 
possibilities  of  the  back  door  could  not  be  better 
summed  up  than  in  Walter's  boast  that  from  it  he 
had  once  seen  two  men  fighting. 

From  the  Yard,  the  Garden  was  monastically 
secluded  by  a  wall  with  a  door  in  it.  The  door 
was  generally  kept  locked,  but  you  were  passed 
through  it  on  parole.  The  Garden  was,  or  seemed, 
immensely  long,  and  it  was  high-walled  on  every 
side.  Highest,  where  it  marched  with  the  Orchard, 
and  received  the  full  beat  of  sun.  Here  were  the 
strawberry-beds,  protected  less  by  your  honor 


THE  CATFISH  13 

than  by  the  awful  gaze  of  those  rare  fruits,  peaches, 
nectarines  and  apricots,  which  even  when  halved 
upon  your  plate  on  Sunday  were  eaten  with  a  sense 
of  sacrilege.  For  a  third  of  its  length  the  wall  was 
given  up  to  vines  under  glass,  and  beyond,  there 
was  a  door  into  the  Orchard  —  convenient  when 
virtue  had  failed.  Because  at  the  top  of  the 
Garden  such  parvenus  as  plums  and  greengages 
took  their  chance  of  your  morality,  and  in  other 
places  there  were  occasions  for  the  conviction  of 
sin  which  inevitably  followed  upon  such  nice 
problems  as  whether  a  pear  had  fallen  or  been  made 
to  fall.  With  regard  to  the  mere  populace  of  cur- 
rants and  gooseberries  under  the  wall  that  divided 
the  Garden  from  the  road,  parole  was  understood  to 
be  reasonably  elastic,  and  to  include  a  privilege,  if 
not  a  duty,  toward  common  boys  who  climbed. 
Clods  were  condoned,  but  stones  forbidden,  and  a 
door  permitted  sudden  excursions  with  sticks  if  the 
force  behind  you  justified  pursuit. 

For  George,  the  risks  of  the  Garden  were  chiefly 
those  of  being  committed  by  Walter  and  Amelia 
against  sneaking.  He  was  not  a  greedy  boy,  and 
with  so  much  for  the  eye,  nose  and  ear,  he  was  apt 
to  forget  the  pleasures  of  taste,  though  he  was 
by  no  means  above  them.  His  happiest  moments 


14  THE  CATFISH 

in  the  Garden  were  spent  before  breakfast,  in  what 
Walter  described  as  a  "  stuck  pig  "  attitude  before 
a  tangle  of  color,  scent  and  sound  in  which  roses, 
lilies,  carnations,  lavender  and  rosemary  were 
separate  thrills,  rather  than  concrete  realities.  He 
had  always,  however,  a  distinct  impression  of  the 
bush  of  Cape  heath,  known  to  him  as  "  bees'-rattle  ", 
which  he  believed  not  only  to  attract,  but  to  breed 
the  droning  perils  to  his  bare  legs  from  behind. 

His  more  sharable  emotions  were  connected 
with  the  Orchard.  The  aristocracy  of  the  fruit- 
bearing  world  being  safely  walled  in  the  Garden, 
the  Orchard  was  more  or  less  free  at  all  hours  of 
liberty,  and  it  was  the  usual  playground  when  you 
didn't  go-out- for-a- walk.  Certain  trees,  the  Quar- 
renders,  for  example,  whose  offspring  bit  rosy 
through  glossy  crimson,  and  the  unnamed  variety 
known  as  the  "  cricket-tree  " —  from  the  betrayals 
of  autumn,  when  good  stumps  as  well  as  common 
sticks  were  found  lodged  in  the  branches  —  were 
nominally  reserved  for  dessert;  but  the  rest  were 
at  a  reasonable  discretion,  quite  humorously 
determined  by  Black  Draught.  Most  of  them  were 
of  the  vulgar  sort,  which  dropped  their  striped 
millions  for  cider.  In  any  case  it  was  not  the 
apples,  nor  yet  the  mixed  emotions  of  cricket  and 


THE  CATFISH  15 

other  games,  which  endeared  the  Orchard  to  George, 
but  the  fact  that  it  sloped  to  the  river.  Here  he 
actually  came  in  touch  with  the  fundamental  reason 
of  Bourneside,  of  which  all  its  other  properties 
were  but  gloss  and  commentary. 

He  was  quick  to  discover  that  for  other  people 
it  was  the  other  way  about,  and  he  envied  them 
their  freedom  of  thought.  To  Walter,  for  example, 
the  Bourne  was  running  water,  brown  in  color  and 
not  over-clear,  to  be  paddled  in,  bathed  in,  fished 
in  —  mainly  for  eels  —  to  be  dammed,  diverted 
and  treated  generally  as  a  convenience.  Nothing 
gave  George  a  stronger  sense  of  Walter's  superi- 
ority than  the  light-hearted  way  in  which  he 
patronized  the  Bourne.  In  this  patronage  George 
bore,  under  direction,  a  humble  part,  but  always 
with  the  hollow  feeling  in  his  stomach  which  at 
that  age  represented  emotion.  Rather  than  betray 
the  real  nature  of  his  feelings,  he  was  content  to  be 
called  a  funk.  In  his  heart  he  knew  that  he  was 
a  funk  —  but  he  was  not  afraid  of  being  drowned. 
He  was  not  afraid  of  anything  that  he  could  give 
a  name  to,  but  it  was  summed  up  in  a  sound. 

You  heard  it  even  in  the  Orchard,  but  in  order 
to  come  under  its  full  influence,  you  had  to  climb 
a  loose  wall  into  the  lower  of  the  two  fields  that 


16  THE  CATFISH 

completed  the  Bourneside  estate.  Screened  by  a 
light  hedge,  the  Bourne  accompanied  the  field  for 
some  distance,  to  be  lost  presently  behind  a  rising 
bank.  At  the  far  corner,  the  field  ran  down  sud- 
denly to  a  gap,  and  there  was  the  Waterfall. 

The  physical  explanation  of  the  Waterfall  was 
simple  enough.  A  few  hundred  yards  above,  the 
Bourne  was  joined  by  a  tributary  coming  from  a 
nearly  opposite  direction.  The  wedded  streams 
advanced  broadly  and  smoothly  to  an  edge,  keen 
and  straight  as  the  edge  of  a  razor,  and  turned 
over  glassily  to  drop  twenty  feet  or  so  in  thunder. 
The  water  came  down  perfectly  straight,  with  only 
a  transient  quiver,  like  the  shaking  of  spears. 
In  the  middle  it  broke  upon  a  rock,  but  on  either 
side  made  its  own  deep  furrow  in  the  water  below, 
which  rolled  up  and  over  like  dragons,  to  foam 
away  at  a  sharp  turn  and  slide  swiftly  and  darkly, 
with  yellow  breaking  bubbles  to  betray  the  speed 
of  it,  under  a  bridge.  Beyond,  the  note  of  the 
Waterfall  was  taken  up  in  servile  human  imitation 
by  a  mill.  Even  in  childhood,  the  mild  boom  and 
quake  of  a  mill  struck  George  as  ridiculously  old- 
womanish. 

Thrilling  as  it  was  to  the  eye  in  its  keen  twinkling 
edge,  glassy  turn,  clean  drop,  fat  upward  roll  from 


THE  CATFISH  17 

below  and  swift  stealthy  retreat,  it  was  the  voice 
of  the  Waterfall  that  shook  George  to  the  center. 
It  became  the  fundamental  bass  of  life.  Heard 
or  unheard,  blown  to  him  heavily  as  he  played  in 
the  Orchard,  or  faintly  as  they  lay  abed,  remembered 
or  forgotten,  it  was  never  out  of  his  mind.  He 
lived  less  upon  the  banks  than  upon  the  sound  of 
the  Bourne.  Just  as  the  smithy,  the  first  point 
in  his  personal  relations  with  the  Bourne,  repre- 
sented the  vision  of  life  in  its  brisk  activities  and 
human  joys  and  sorrows,  so  the  Waterfall,  at  the 
farthest  end,  embodied  the  deeps  and  mysteries  of 
which  human  life  is  only  the  surface-play.  In  the 
precarious  make-believe  he  shared  with  other  people, 
George  was  prepared  to  make  all  sorts  of  com- 
parisons to  the  sound  of  the  Waterfall :  to  him  it 
said  very  plainly,  "  Doom !  " 


CHAPTER  II 

THOUGH  deeply  based  in  the  sound  of 
"Doom!"  George's  life  at  Bourneside  was 
far  from  unhappy.  For  all  its  disturbing  under- 
current, it  was  the  constant  effort  to  climb  out  of 
it  that  bothered  him.  Not  that  the  game  of  make- 
believe  was  unpleasant  in  itself,  but  that  the  rules 
were  so  hard  to  understand.  They  seemed  to  be 
purely  arbitrary;  they  bore  no  relation  to  life  as 
he  felt  it,  or  even  to  each  other.  Meals,  lessons, 
cricket,  going-to-church,  polite  conversation  with 
elders  —  each  turn  of  the  game  was  independent 
of  all  the  rest  and  presented  its  own  opportunities 
for  coming  to  grief.  Meals,  for  example,  were 
only  remotely  connected  with  the  satisfaction  of 
hunger.  That  was  the  simplest  affair,  but,  un- 
fortunately, you  didn't  get  down  when  it  was  ac- 
complished. In  fact,  meals  properly  only  began 
when  you  had  eaten  all  you  wanted,  and  for  a  long 
time  George  associated  the  word  with  the  horrid 
sound  of  food  in  a  dry  mouth  —  a  condition  that 

betrayed  you  into  the  crime  of  drinking-with-your- 

18 


THE  CATFISH  19 

mouth- full.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that 
George's  earlier  life  was  darkened  by  meals. 

Lessons,  again,  were  so  obscurely  connected  with 
the  acquisition  of  knowledge  that  they  seemed 
to  have  been  invented  for  an  exactly  opposite 
reason.  Instead  of  opening  your  mind  to  its  fullest 
reach,  you  had  to  make  it  small  and  gritty  in  order 
to  compass  them.  They  were  difficult  by  what 
they  excluded.  They  gave  you  the  word  "  Roman  ", 
but  denied  you  all  that  glamor  of  the  clanking 
sentinel  gazing  Severnvvard  through  the  fir-wood 
from  the  mound  of  the  Camp,  which  would  have 
made  the  word  comprehensible  and  fertile.  As 
presented  at  lessons,  it  was  a  hard  and  dry  little 
thing  like  a  parched  pea,  which  rolled  about  in  the 
sensitive  folds  of  your  memory  in  unrelated  com- 
pany with  dates.  You  were  lucky  if  you  cornered 
them  together  on  demand.  It  puzzled  George  that 
while  his  elders,  at  meals  or  in  conversation  with 
visitors,  would  speak  of  the  Camp  as  Roman  — 
even  mentioning  that  coins  and  pottery  had  been 
found  there  —  he  was  not  allowed  to  talk  about  the 
Camp  at  lessons.  Naturally  he  concluded  that 
meals,  lessons  and  polite  conversation  were  separate 
turns  in  an  elaborate  game  of  make-believe. 

In  the  matter  of  lessons,  however,  independent 


20  THE  CATFISH 

reading  soon  came  to  his  aid.  Though  lessons 
were  not  for  the  acquisition  of  knowledge,  knowl- 
edge acquired  by  whatever  means  could  be  applied 
to  them  with  advantageous  results.  Not  only 
knowledge,  but  the  discouraged  faculties  connected 
with  the  life  of  reality,  such  as  that  of  dreaming. 
Arithmetic  as  done  by  rules  and  tables  was  a  hope- 
less muddle,  but  when  you  shut  your  eyes  and 
saw  the  figures  perform  their  complicated  evolu- 
tions, it  cleared  up  wonderfully.  With  no  object 
in  these  illegitimate  approaches  but  self -protection, 
George  presently  heard  that  he  was  "  getting  on  " 
at  lessons.  He  was  even  spoken  of  as  "  rather 
clever  ".  He  was  overcome  with  shame  at  the  result 
of  his  duplicity.  With  fear  also.  Sooner  or  later 
there  must  be  an  awful  exposure;  he  would  be 
forced  to  betray  the  basis  of  his  fancied  "  clever- 
ness ".  He  knew  the  real  thing.  It  was  embodied 
in  a  little  girl  of  his  acquaintance  of  whom  it  was 
said :  "  She  knows  all  her  tables  and  all  her 
dates." 

Walter  and  Amelia,  with  whom,  for  a  short 
time,  he  shared  the  rule  of  Miss  Arnold,  were  not 
clever,  but  they  played  the  game.  They  used  no 
illegitimate  approaches  to  lessons  from  below; 
never  found  the  fact  they  wanted  in  memories  of 


THE  CATFISH  21 

Andersen  or  dreamed  their  sums  to  a  triumphant 
conclusion.  Right  or  wrong,  they  did  everything 
by  the  rules.  If  wrong,  they  took  their  punish- 
ment, being  kept  in,  or  even  rapped  over  the 
knuckles  with  the  ruler,  tearfully,  maybe,  but  up- 
standing. When  George  was  wrong,  he  was  gener- 
ally harrassed  by  the  conviction  that  by  some  queer 
light  of  reality  he  was  right.  He  could  not  be 
content  to  abide  and  suffer  by  rules  that  he  did  not 
understand.  It  was  not  the  punishment  he  wept 
under,  but  the  sense  of  being  misguided  by  knowl- 
edge that  never  could  conform  to  the  rules. 

Walter  and  Amelia  were  not  clever,  but  they 
understood,  if  they  did  not  always  remember,  the 
rules.  For  them  "  hist'ry  was  hist'ry,  and  jog- 
raphy,  jography  " ;  there  was  no  illicit  connection 
between  the  two,  or  of  both  with  the  Camp  and 
the  Archery  Field  —  let  alone  the  perilous  associa- 
tion of  "  hist'ry  "  with  tales  and  "  jography  "  with 
earthquakes.  But  it  was  less  their  power  of 
keeping  these  and  other  branches  of  knowledge 
pure  and  unmixed  that  George  envied  his  elder 
brother  and  sister  than  the  extraordinary  faculty 
they  seemed  to  share  with  their  elders  of  linking 
them  up  with  meals,  orthodox  games,  and  —  on 
the  part  of  their  elders  —  business  and  politics, 


22  THE  CATFISH 

and  other  difficult  and  unrelated  exercises,  as  parts 
of  a  consistent  and  adequate  whole.  They  might 
stumble  in  this  region,  but  they  never  seemed  to 
slip  through  into  another  world  —  a  world  of  solid 
though  enchanted  ground,  where  dawn  harped  in 
the  fir-wood,  Things  romped  in  an  unexplained 
attic,  and  the  Waterfall  thundered  "  Doom !  " ;  a 
world  where  you  moved  easily,  though  humbly, 
and  often  afraid.  Walter  and  Amelia  were  some- 
times afraid,  but  always  of  consequences  —  which 
were  the  least  part  of  his  concern.  In  the  matter 
of  bulls,  it  was  the  actual  goring  and  trampling 
they  feared.  George  would  not  have  welcomed 
these  experiences,  but  what  he  really  dreaded  was 
the  real  or  imaginary  disposition  to  inflict  them 
on  the  part  of  an  animal  that  looked  so  noble  and 
wise,  and,  moreover,  could  not  communicate  its 
intentions  in  articulate  language.  If  a  bull  could 
have  spoken,  he  would  have  dared  its  horns  and 
hoofs  with  a  comparatively  light  heart.  As  it 
was,  he  could  not  distinguish  his  fear  of  bulls  and 
other  large  animals  from  his  fear  of  God;  in  each 
case  fear  was  equally  mixed  up  with  love  and 
reverence. 

Even   in   manhood  he  could   not   quite   believe 
that  horned  cattle  and  big  dogs  were  not  nobler 


THE  CATFISH  23 

and  wiser  than  he  was  —  though  perhaps  not 
so  clever.  At  seven  years  old,  he  never  doubted 
the  fact,  though  he  found  it  convenient  to  pretend 
otherwise.  The  difference  between  his  and 
Walter's  and  Amelia's  fears  was  best  illustrated 
by  their  respective  attitudes  to  thunder  and  light- 
ning. They  feared  the  lightning;  he  the  thunder. 
In  vain  they  argued  that  lightning  killed,  while 
thunder  was  only  a  noise.  Intellectually  he  as- 
sented, but  in  his  heart  he  knew  that  thunder  was 
the  aw  fuller  phenomenon.  With  this  topsyturvy 
conception  of  the  universe  it  was  not  surprising  that 
in  moments  of  actual  danger  he  often  showed  un- 
expected courage  and  coolness.  Then  he  was  called 
brave.  He  hated  to  be  called  brave  as  he  hated  to 
be  called  clever;  not  out  of  modesty,  but  because 
he  knew  that  in  that  particular  instance  the  danger, 
as  the  difficulty,  had  not  existed  for  him.  They 
came  a  lot  earlier.  Brave  people  were  they  who 
could  mock  at  thunder,  walk  unmoved  through  the 
lowering  silence  of  bulls,  or  treat  the  Bourne  as  a 
convenience. 

As  he  grew  up  and  extended  his  circle  of 
acquaintances,  he  made  his  own  inferiority  the 
standard  of  judgment.  He  could  not  help  seeing 
that,  though  contemptible,  he  was  not  quite  alone. 


24  THE  CATFISH 

Other  people,  in  varying  degrees,  betrayed  the  same 
tendency  to  lose  foothold  in  the  difficult  world  of 
make-believe  —  which  he  always  pictured  as  a 
complicated  scaffolding  —  and  fall  through  to  the 
solid  ground  of  reality.  Naturally  he  despised 
them  —  as  linked  with  him  by  a  common  shame. 
His  heroes  were  all  people  who  were  perfectly  at 
home  in  the  world  of  make-believe;  imaginative 
people,  he  would  have  called  them,  if  he  had  been 
familiar  with  the  word.  His  father  and  Walter 
in  particular. 

He  did  not  see  very  much  of  his  father,  who 
drove  into  Barstow  every  morning  and  returned 
only  in  time  for  dinner,  but  what  he  saw  was 
all  heroic.  To  begin  with,  his  father  could  ride, 
drive  and  shoot  without  the  least  appearance  of 
doing  anything  romantic.  He  preferred  newspa- 
pers to  books,  and  meat  to  pudding.  He  smoked 
pipes  and  drank  beer  and  wine  as  if  he  liked 
them.  From  conversation  George  understood 
that,  since  his  elevation  to  partnership,  his  father 
had  set  the  business  on  its  legs;  and  he  pictured 
him  doing  it  with  his  bare  hands,  as  he  had 
seen  the  men  putting  up  trestle-tables  in  the 
Archery  Field  for  school  treats. 

Of  his  father's  forthright  methods  with  nature 


THE  CATFISH  25 

he  had  the  evidence  of  his  own  eyes  on  Sundays. 
His  father  was  a  passionate  gardener,  with  no  more 
respect  for  the  natural  divisions  of  the  earth  than 
he  had  for  the  susceptibilities  of  his  neighbors.  He 
would  have  down  a  wall  or  shift  an  asparagus-bed 
as  soon  as  look  at  it.  George  thought  of  him  as  al- 
ways with  a  priming-knife  in  his  hand,  but  that  his 
energies  were  not  purely  destructive  he  knew  from 
the  extraordinary  richness  of  their  table  in  fruit  and 
vegetables,  as  well  as  from  the  reputation  the 
Garden  presently  acquired.  But  the  destructive 
energies  most  impressed  him.  There  was  the  re- 
moval of  the  mulberry-tree.  Enormous,  in  the 
midst  of  the  Garden,  it  was  for  George  the  very 
symbol  of  permanence;  a  Tree  Ygdrasil,  whose 
roots  encompassed  the  world  and  whose  branches 
were  a  kingdom.  Moreover,  George  was  very  fond 
of  its  fruit.  Their  strange  flavor,  so  mellow  and 
yet  so  sharp,  released  pictures  in  his  brain  of 
Turks  and  Venetians  and  the  Great  Wall  of  China, 
so  that  he  instinctively  closed  his  eyes  whenever 
he  swallowed  a  mulberry.  In  autumn,  new  sacks 
were  spread  on  the  grass  plot  which  surrounded 
the  great  tree  to  catch  the  fruit;  and  to  the  end 
of  his  life  George  could  not  look  at  new  sacks 
without  seeing  them  stained  with  mulberry-juice. 


26  THE  CATFISH 

One  Sunday  George  observed  his  father  walking 
round  and  round  the  tree,  thoughtfully  stroking  his 
beard.  Between  the  thrill  that  every  child  feels 
at  the  prospect  of  change,  regret  and  awe,  he  heard 
him  say  that  the  tree  robbed  the  Garden  of  more 
than  its  value.  The  very  next  day  a  small  army 
of  men  descended  upon  the  tree  with  pickaxes 
and  shovels,  and  it  was  as  if  the  abyss  had. been 
opened.  In  a  morning  the  symbol  of  permanence 
had  ceased  to  exist  at  a  word  from  his  father,  whose 
week-day  viceroy  in  the  Garden,  Dicky  Dando, 
wrung  his  hands  over  the  operations  —  thus  giving 
the  measure  of  their  audacity.  But  George  had 
heard  his  father  speak  of  Dicky  as  "  an  old  fool  ". 

Outside  the  Garden  George  was  most  impressed 
by  the  things  his  father  did  not  do.  He  did  not 
go  to  church.  Nor  did  he  ever  pay  visits,  though 
people  came  to  him.  Young  as  he  was,  George 
felt  the  weight  of  this  passivity,  and  he  surmised 
that  his  father  must  have  some  natural  authority 
denied  to  other  men.  He  did  not  know  what  it  was, 
but  he  observed  that  his  father  might  have  been  a 
more  important  local  figure  than  he  chose  to  be. 
At  one  time  George  supposed  that  his  father's 
power  was  due  to  his  being  a  banker  and  so  con- 
trolling all  the  money  in  the  world;  but  observing 


THE  CATFISH  27 

that  his  principal  partner,  Mr.  Burroughs,  was 
obviously  a  man  of  straw,  he  concluded  that  there 
must  be  some  other  reason.  Whatever  it  was,  it 
resulted  in  other  people  making  advances  to  which 
his  father  did  not  respond.  From  stray  hints 
George  was  led  to  believe  that  his  mother  sometimes 
gently  complained  at  the  sacrifice  of  social  ad- 
vantages; and  he  gathered  that  what  acquaintances 
she  made  were  at  the  risk  of  his  father's  displeasure. 
Visitors  often  gave  George  the  impression  of  be- 
ing anxious  to  repair  a  mistake. 

To  himself,  his  father  was  kind  though  indulgent. 
Evidently  he  recognized  that  George  was  a  failure 
in  the  world  of  affairs.  He  did  not  expect  from 
him  the  intelligence,  courage  and  bodily  prowess 
that  he  exacted  from  Walter.  Whenever  George 
tried  to  attract  his  father's  attention  to  some  hard- 
won  accomplishment  in  these  phases  of  acfivity,  his 
father  good-humoredly  turned  the  conversation 
upon  books.  This,  though  galling,  was  inevitable, 
and  could  be  borne  so  long  as  his  father  did  not 
suspect,  as  he  evidently  did  not,  his  real  inferiority 
—  which  included  and  explained  his  increasing 
proficiency  at  lessons. 

With  his  mother  it  was  different.  Almost  as 
soon  as  he  became  aware  of  himself  George  sus- 


28  THE  CATFISH 

pected  that  she  understood  him,  and  that  she 
gloated  secretly  over  his  inferiority.  The  reason, 
he  surmised,  was  that  she  herself  made  a  com- 
paratively poor  job  of  the  life  of  make-believe.  He 
observed  that  she  had  not  his  father's  and  brother's 
glorious  freedom  with  words;  that,  like  himself, 
she  was  often  bothered  by  the  weight  of  meaning 
that  hung  to  them.  He  loved  his  mother,  of 
course,  but  he  resented  her  tendency  to  give  him 
away.  He  did  not  mind  being  called  a  "  duffer  ", 
"  silly  ",  or  even  a  "  coward  ",  but  he  did  mind  the 
basis  of  the  weaknesses  indicated  being  exposed. 
His  mother  sometimes  tried  to  smooth  over  his 
natural  differences  with  Miss  Arnold,  and  he  knew 
that  she  repeated  his  most  unguarded  sayings  to 
his  father.  Consequently,  he  kept  his  mother  at  a 
little  distance  —  a  distance  that  she  was  always  try- 
ing in  some  crafty  way  to  diminish. 

On  summer  evenings  she  would  call  him  to  sit 
with  her  on  the  Side  Lawn,  thus  catching  him  when 
the  decline  of  day,  the  unfinished  remarks  of  birds 
and  the  smell  of  spiraea  brought  him  nearest  to  his 
basis  of  reality.  Or,  again  on  summer  evenings, 
she  would  walk  with  him  at  the  top  end  of  the 
Garden,  behind  the  raspberry-canes,  in  full  hearing 
of  the  Waterfall.  In  one  corner  of  this  end  of  the 


THE  CATFISH  29 

Garden  there  was  a  small,  dark,  irregular  building, 
sham  Gothic  in  style  and  believed  by  George  to  be 
of  great  age,  now  used  as  a  tool-house  and  for 
growing  mushrooms  and  forcing  sea-kale.  This, 
with  the  shadow  of  the  wall  and  the  sound  of  the 
Waterfall,  gave  to  the  place  a  peculiar  solemnity. 

On  these  occasions  George's  mother  wore  a  broad 
hat  and  a  red  cloak  that  he  never  remembered  her 
to  wear  at  any  other  time.  With  him  she  paced 
up  and  down  the  walk,  holding  her  head  with  un- 
usual dignity  and  often  smiling.  It  seemed  to  him 
as  if  she  moved  to  unheard  music  and  he  con- 
cluded that,  inspired  by  the  surroundings,  she  must 
be  playing  some  foolish  game  such  as  he  often  in- 
dulged in  when  let  alone.  He  was  sympathetic, 
but  on  guard;  and  after  a  few  turns  he  generally 
began  to  talk  rather  loudly  about  matters  connected 
with  the  life  of  make-believe;  how  many  runs  he 
had  made  at  cricket,  or  how  the  apples  were  coming 
on.  His  mother  would  say:  "  Yes,  yes,"  absently. 
All  the  time  he  knew  that  he  was  wanting  to  talk 
about  real  things,  that  he  was  on  the  edge  of  some- 
thing, so  to  speak,  incriminating;  but  he  could  not 
have  said  what  it  was  he  wanted  to  say,  and  so 
the  walk  always  gave  him  a  queer  mixture  of  emo- 
tions. 


30  THE  CATFISH 

But  it  was  in  church  that  he  found  his  mother 
most  disturbing.  Even  without  her,  church  was 
one  of  his  most  trying  experiences,  for  it  was  there 
that  the  life  of  reality  and  the  life  of  make-believe 
came  to  close  quarters.  There  only  needed  a  touch 
to  make  them  one,  but  since  the  touch  was  want- 
ing, you  had  to  be  on  guard  all  the  time.  George 
liked  being  in  church;  he  loved  the  organ  and  the 
colored  windows  —  they  sat  under  the  Resurrec- 
tion—  but  he  hated  going-to-church ;  that  was  the 
nearest  he  could  get  to  describing  his  conflicting 
emotions.  If  he  could  have  crept  in  quietly  in  his 
every-day  clothes  and  hidden  behind  the  font,  he 
would  have  been  quite  happy. 

What 'he  dreaded  most  of  all  was  blushing.  He 
never  knew  when  it  would  happen;  some  trick  of 
the  organ,  some  word  in  the  lessons  or  even  in  the 
sermon  would  get  home  upon  him  as  he  sat  staring 
unguardedly  at  the  east  window,  and  his  cheeks 
would  flame.  With  his  mother  beside  him  he  sat 
in  a  prickle  of  apprehension.  She  might  not  blush, 
but  he  could  feel  her  tremble,  and  he  was  constantly 
afraid  that  she  would  take  hold  of  his  hand.  If 
she  had  he  would  have  blubbered  outright.  One 
dreadful  day  his  mother  disgraced  him  utterly.  At 
the  words  of  the  lesson :  "  For  I  tell  you  that 


THE  CATFISH  31 

the  troubles  and  trials  of  this  mortal  life  are  not 
worthy  to  be  compared  to  the  glory  that  shall  be 
revealed  in  us,"  she  suddenly  burst  out  crying. 
George's  conviction  that  her  crying  had  something 
to  do  with  his  father's  not  going  to  church  did  not 
make  him  any  more  lenient  in  his  judgment  of  her 
weakness.  His  wisdom  in  keeping  her  at  a  distance 
was  confirmed. 

The  other  members  of  the  family  gave  him  no 
trouble.  Walter,  who  was  five  years  older  than  he, 
was  already  a  man  of  the  world.  He  could  ride 
and  drive,  swim  and  skate;  and  if  he  could  not 
shoot,  he  had  more  than  once  let  off  a  gun.  Ad- 
miring him,  George  felt  perfectly  safe  in  his  good- 
natured  contempt.  Walter  suspected  nothing  more 
than  that  he  was  a  duffer  at  games.  Every  word 
of  praise  from  Walter  was  treasured  by  George, 
who  valued  success  only  in  that  which  belonged  to 
the  world  of  affairs.  It  was  Walter  who,  without 
suspecting  the  reason,  made  him  feel  the  indignity 
of  comparative  quickness  at  lessons.  When,  at  the 
age  of  twelve,  Walter  was  emancipated  from  the 
rule  of  Miss  Arnold  and  began  to  attend  a  day- 
school,  he  grandly  gave  George  his  paint-box  as  a 
symbol  of  infancy  for  which  he  had  no  further 
use. 


32  THE  CATFISH 

Amelia,  two  years  older  than  George,  was  a 
nonentity;  a  Tomlinson  —  if  he  had  known  the  al- 
lusion. She  belonged  to  the  half -world  between 
affairs  and  reality.  She  would  play  cricket  as  if  she 
liked  it,  but,  if  Walter  were  not  there,  she  would 
pretend  to  sensible  games  such  as  Pirates,  Crusaders 
and  the  Round  Table.  If  George  despised  and  dis- 
trusted those  who  shared  his  weakness,  he  could  not 
away  with  those  who  affected  it.  People  who  went 
out  of  their  way  to  claim  an  inferiority  they  were 
not  born  to  were  beneath  contempt.  For  want  of 
a  better,  George  made  use  of  Amelia  in  sensible 
games,  but  he  was  always  having  to  coach  her.  In 
the  world  of  reality  she  was  blind  and  deaf.  Her 
games  with  dolls  were  feeble  in  the  extreme;  they 
were  nothing  more  than  grotesque  imitations  of 
the  world  of  affairs.  Sure  sign  of  the  pretender 
in  the  world  of  reality,  Amelia  invented  things; 
ghosts  on  the  stairs  —  as  if  the  stairs  were  not 
enough  —  and  a  personality  for  the  Bourne.  The 
Bourne  a  person!  But  being  meek  and  long- 
haired, she  made  a  good  passive  object  in  real 
games;  as  Andromeda,  or  the  captive  Paleface 
Maiden.  She  could  wail  with  conviction  as  the 
monster  or  the  flames  drew  nearer  and  nearer. 

Miss    Arnold,    though    sometimes    unfair,    was 


THE  CATFISH  33 

likable.  She  never  pretended  to,  nor  suspected,  any 
reality  outside  the  game  of  discipline  tempered  by 
ritualistic  recreations  such  as  picking-wild-flowers 
or  tea-in-the-hay-field.  An  engaging  trait  was  her 
abject  admiration  for  George's  father.  George 
doubted  if  the  admiration  were  valued  at  its  proper 
worth ;  he  once  overheard  his  father  mimicking  Miss 
Arnold  to  his  mother. 

The  rest  of  the  household  —  the  inconstant  trio 
of  maids,  Dicky  Dando,  who  quaked  and  murmured 
under  the  responsibility  of  the  Garden,  and  William, 
who  ruled  the  Yard  —  were  valued  according  to 
their  talents  and  amenability  to  coaxing.  On  the 
whole  William  was  the  most  important.  His  con- 
cerns—  the  horse,  guns,  rat-traps  and  tools  gener- 
ally —  were  further  removed  than  Dicky's  from  the 
world  with  which  George  was  instinctively  familiar. 
Dicky  was  almost  a  native  of  George's  world.  He 
didn't  like  the  look  of  the  weather,  and  had  other 
apprehensions.  George  was  afraid  sometimes  that 
Dicky  understood  him.  Possibly  that  was  why  his 
father  had  called  him  "  an  old  fool  ". 

William  was  much  younger  than  Dicky  and 
had  things  more  his  own  way.  Besides,  Walter 
thought  more  of  him.  He  had  the  extraordinary 
distinction  of  living  on  the  Camp,  his  business  took 


34  THE  CATFISH 

him  often  to  the  smithy,  and  he  was  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  politics  of  the  Back  Door.  Most 
of  George's  information  about  the  great  world  came 
through  William  and  the  Back  Door.  On  winter 
evenings  he  had  the  sense  that  the  business  of  the 
nation  was  being  settled  there. 

Dicky  Dando  was  utterly  useless  as  a  channel  of 
information  about  the  great  world.  For  one  thing, 
he  lived  almost  on  the  estate,  across  the  road  in  a 
cottage,  the  Garden  of  which  was  visible  from  the 
nursery  windows.  The  blacksmith  lived  next  door 
to  him,  and  George  could  not  help  feeling  that 
Dicky  was  unworthy  of  his  privilege.  He  seemed 
to  take  no  interest  in  the  world,  and  on  the  other 
hand,  his  connection  with  the  deeps  and  mysteries 
that  lay  below  the  surface  of  life  was  rendered 
sterile  by  his  extraordinary  stupidity.  He  and 
George  had  always  a  different  explanation  of  natural 
phenomena.  Besides  mismanaging  the  Garden, 
Dicky  milked  the  cow  that  lived  in  the  Orchard,  fed 
the  fowls,  and  made  the  butter.  He  did  the  last 
in  a  tall  churn  in  the  back  kitchen,  and  his  connec- 
tion with  mystery  was  impressed  upon  George  by 
the  spectacle  of  him  "  dap-dapping "  like  a  man 
bedeviled,  and  occasionally  stopping  to  wipe  his 
brow  and  mutter  because  the  butter  wouldn't 


THE  CATFISH  35 

"  come  ".  George  was  persuaded  that  he  muttered 
charms.  Then  there  was  the  occult  relation  be- 
tween cream  and  thunder.  To  sum  up  the  inferi- 
ority of  Dicky  to  William,  while  the  latter  rightly 
thought  much  of  "  Mas'r  Walter  ",  Dicky  undoubt- 
edly preferred  George.  Worst  of  all,  perhaps,  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  calling  him  "  a  little  scholard." 

This,  with  its  implications,  was  becoming  more 
and  more  the  cloud  upon  George's  future.  It  was 
understood  that  Walter  was  to  follow  his  father 
into  the  bank,  but  George  had  the  uneasy  feeling 
that  his  parents  had  already  given  him  up  as  hopeless 
for  such  a  natural  promotion;  his  father  in  good- 
natured  despair,  his  mother  with  secret  approval. 
His  pretending  was  of  no  avail.  He  was  being 
relegated  to  women,  to  such  as  Dicky  Dando,  and  to 
the  things  that  could  be  done  easily.  As  yet,  noth- 
ing definite  had  been  said  to  indicate  his  future  fate, 
but  one  Sunday  at  dessert,  when  they  were  talking 
about  the  respective  merits  of  different  professions, 
his  father  said  laughingly  as  he  cracked  a  nut : 

"  Oh,  George  will  have  to  be  a  parson,  or  a  school- 
master, or  an  artist,  or  something  of  that  sort." 

George  knew  that  the  first  must  be  a  joke,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  he  was  not  good  enough.  About 
a  schoolmaster  he  didn't  know — though  Walter's 


36  THE  CATFISH 

accounts  of  Mr.  Shipway  were  not  encouraging; 
but  the  idea  of  being  an  artist  presented  certain 
attractions  —  though  he  had  not  thought  of  it  be- 
fore. He  drew  and  painted,  but  only  for  practical 
purposes,  to  remember  things  by,  and  he  did  not 
suppose  that  an  artist  was  concerned  with  remem- 
bering. He  thought  of  an  artist  as  making  plain 
the  mysteries. 

Within  the  next  few  days  it  came  to  his  ears 
that  there  was  an  artist  in  the  neighborhood. 
Discreet  inquiries  only  brought  the  information  that 
the  artist  had  drawn  and  painted  certain  familiar 
spots.  No  member  of  the  household  had  seen  him 
actually  at  work,  and  when  George  found  an  op- 
portunity to  visit  some  of  the  scenes  of  his  alleged 
labors  they  did  not  look  any  different.  He  had 
expected  to  find  them  looking  tired,  as  if  robbed  of 
their  secrets.  Then  one  morning  George  heard 
from  Dicky  Dando  that  the  artist  was  painting  the 
Waterfall. 

With  a  sense  of  intruding  upon  awful  rites,  he 
slipped  through  the  Orchard  and  crossed  the  lower 
field,  keeping  close  to  the  hedge.  When  he  came  to 
the  gap  he  lay  down  on  his  stomach  and  crawled. 
Yes,  the  artist  was  there.  His  appearance  was  dis- 
appointing. He  was  dressed  rather  absurdly  in  a 


THE  CATFISH  37 

white  coat  and  a  broad-brimmed  gray  hat,  and  he 
looked  common.  He  sat  on  a  stool  before  an  easel 
with  a  bottle  of  beer  beside  him —  for  it  was  just 
dinner-time.  The  boy  who  had  brought  the  beer 
stood  by  the  water  with  a  bent  stick,  pretending 
to  fish,  and  the  artist  was  painting  him.  This  in 
itself  struck  George  as  foolish.  Anybody  could  see 
that  no  fish  lived  below  that  falling  thunder.  Green 
water-snakes  with  jeweled  eyes  and  golden  crowns 
upon  their  heads  were  a  different  matter.  The  art- 
ist held  his  head  on  one  side  in  a  self-satisfied  way 
and  whistled  while  he  painted.  Presently  the  boy 
caught  sight  of  George  and  grinned.  The  artist 
looked  round  and  said :  "  Well,  young  shaver  ?  " 

Unafraid  now,  George  drew  near  and  watched 
him  at  work.  No  wonder  the  other  places  showed 
no  sign  of  his  labors.  This  man  could  not  have 
taken  away  the  secret  of  a  cabbage.  He  had  made 
the  Waterfall  as  tame  as  a  teapot,  all  curly  where  it 
should  have  been  straight,  and  absurdly  festooned 
with  leaning  trees.  Trying  to  conceal  his  disap- 
pointment, George  said  nothing,  and  the  artist  said : 
"  Well,  wouldn't  you  like  to  be  an  artist?  "  George 
said  emphatically,  "  No." 

He  knew  that  with  a  little  practise  he  could  have 
done  better.  He  could  at  least  have  suggested  the 


38  THE  CATFISH 

straight  fall  of  the  water,  the  deep  furrow  and  the 
fat  upward  roll.  When  he  went  home  to  dinner 
he  said  something  of  the  sort  and  was  reproved 
for  boasting.  Years  later,  when  he  saw  a  Chinese 
painting  of  a  waterfall  in  the  British  Museum  he 
knew  that  he  had  been  right.  At  the  time  he  de- 
cided that  nothing  would  induce  him  to  become  an 
artist,  and  when  he  gathered  from  the  conversation 
of  his  elders  that  an  artist  was  regarded  as  a  feeble 
unpractical  sort  of  person,  he  cordially  agreed. 

Failing  some  natural  employment  of  manhood, 
such  as  the  bank,  or  the  sea,  or  soldiering,  or  ex- 
ploring, or  even  driving  an  engine,  George  had  as 
yet  no  definite  idea  of  what  he  wanted  to  be.  His 
great  need  at  present  was  to  know.  He  read  every- 
thing that  came  in  his  way.  He  loved  Andersen 
and  Hiawatha  and  Tales  of  the  Round  Table 
for  the  strange  feelings  they  gave  him  and  the 
beautiful  pictures  they  made  him  see;  but  on  the 
whole  he  preferred  facts  to  fairy  tales.  If  you 
got  the  facts  you  could  do  all  the  rest,  and  most 
fairy  tales  struck  him  as  missing  the  real  wonder 
of  the  world  in  an  attempt  to  improve  upon  it  — 
very  much  as  Amelia  missed  the  real  meaning  of 
the  stairs,  or  the  artist  that  of  the  Waterfall.  How 
things  were  done  was  an  absorbing  interest,  and 


THE  CATFISH  39 

for  that  reason  The  Swiss  Family  Robinson  was 
put  before  Robinson  Crusoe. 

It  was  probably  the  birthday  gifts  of  a  tool-box 
and  what  was  called  a  "  chemical  chest  "  that  turned 
George's  attention  in  a  direction  that  might  be 
called  scientific.  The  way  things  worked  was  a 
never-ending  delight  to  him,  and  he  had  an  in- 
stinctive sense  of  mechanics.  Presently  it  was 
said :  "  George  will  be  an  inventor."  He  knew, 
though  he  could  not  have  explained  why,  that  it 
was  not  true.  He  had  no  desire  to  invent  things, 
nor  had  he  the  craftsman's  joy  in  the  actual  use  of 
tools ;  what  he  wanted  was  to  realize  the  way  things 
worked.  He  understood  the  principle  of  the  steam- 
engine  in  a  flash ;  the  steam  wanted  to  get  out,  and 
all  the  rest  followed  as  a  matter  of  course. 

But  this  very  understanding  of  mechanics  left  cer- 
tain other  things  only  the  more  mysterious.  The 
barometer,  for  example.  How  it  actually  foretold 
the  weather.  His  first  suspicion  of  the  intellects 
of  people  who  were  perfectly  at  home  in  the  world 
of  affairs  was  caused  by  Walter's  remark,  supported 
by  Miss  Arnold,  that  a  barometer  was  not  more 
wonderful  than  a  clock  which  was  able  to  tell  the 
time.  Let  alone  the  difference  between  telling  and 
foretelling,  anybody  could  see  how  a  clock  worked; 


40  THE  CATFISH 

'  the  spring,  like  the  steam  of  the  engine,  wanted  to 
get  out,  and  the  pendulum  said,  "  No,  you  don't,  ex- 
cept a  tick  at  a  time,"  and  so  the  wheels  went  round 
and  the  day  was  measured.  He  was  astounded 
that  anybody  could  think  of  a  clock  and  a  barometer 
"  in  the  same  breath  ".  One  was  a  machine,  but 
the  other  knew  the  secrets  of  the  universe.  The 
result  of  the  discussion,  besides  upsetting  his  faith 
in  people  of  affairs,  was  to  leave  him  wondering 
whether  the  life  of  affairs  was  not,  perhaps,  a  wise 
provision  for  regulating  the  movements  of  an  in- 
convenient curiosity.  But  that  did  not  explain  how 
the  curiosity,  with  its  undercurrent  of  thrills  and 
fears,  like  the  ups  and  downs  of  the  barometer, 
arose. 


CHAPTER  III 

OUTSIDE  his  own  household  the  people  with 
whom  George  had  the  closest  personal  re- 
lations were  the  Markhams  at  the  vicarage.  From 
the  first  arrival  at  Bourneside  they  were  intimate 
friends  of  his  mother.  Partly  because  Mr.  Mark- 
ham  was  the  vicar,  and  partly  because  the  vicarage 
stood  high,  actually  overlooking  the  Camp,  George 
thought  of  the  Markhams  as  already  half-way  to 
Heaven  and  so  not  to  be  judged  too  hardly  for 
their  obvious  incapacity  in  affairs.  They  belonged 
by  right  to  the  world  of  books.  Their  position, 
too,  absolved  them  from  blame  in  being  on  friendly 
terms  with  the  stuck-up  people  who  attended  archery 
meeting.  They  had  to  know  everybody. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Markham  were  oldish  people,  and 
consequently  outside  the  range  of  anything  but  re- 
spect. There  was  a  son  at  Oxford,  whom  George 
thought  of  as  already  almost  a  clergyman,  and  there 
were  two  daughters,  Eleanor  and  Rose.  They 
formed  the  link  between  the  vicarage  and  Bourne- 
side.  Both  were,  in  a  sense,  grown  up,  being  over 

41 


42  THE  CATFISH 

twenty,  but  they  were  not  too  old  to  associate  with 
children  on  equal  terms.  Eleanor  was  tall,  dark  and 
grave;  Rose  short,  fair  and  lively.  George  was 
quick  to  see  that  they  adored  his  mother  and  that  all 
the  rest  of  the  relations  between  the  two  families 
were  determined  by  that.  For  example,  it  could  not 
escape  him  that  the  Markham  girls  took  more  notice 
of  him  than  of  Walter  and  Amelia.  He  being 
the  youngest,  this  was  perhaps  natural,  but  at  the 
back  of  his  mind,  George  believed  that  the  real 
reason  why  the  Markham  girls  made  a  special  fa- 
vorite of  him  was  that  they  were  in  his  mother's 
confidence  about  his  inferiority  —  which  she  wel- 
comed in  secret.  He  submitted,  because  he  liked 
the  Markham  girls  —  particularly  Eleanor  —  but  he 
was  always  hoping  that  he  would  one  day  astonish 
them  by  a  thousand  runs  at  cricket,  or  killing  a  mad 
dog,  or  other  evidence  of  masculine  power.  He 
could  imagine  them  saying :  "  George,  we  have 
misjudged  you.  We  thought  you  were  no  good 
for  anything  but  books." 

Meanwhile  they  lent  him  books,  softened  his  re- 
lations with  Miss  Arnold,  whom  he  felt  they  secretly 
despised,  and  took  him  out  for  walks,  when  he  was 
divided  between  the  pleasure  of  sympathetic  com- 
panionship and  the  risk  of  giving  himself  away. 


THE  CATFISH  43 

Sometimes  he  was  afraid  that  it  was  all  a  ghastly 
misunderstanding;  that  they  were  in  league  with 
his  mother  to  make  him  a  clergyman.  Then  he 
would  have  to  get  up  and  say :  "  I  am  not  good 
enough." 

Color  was  lent  to  this  apprehension  by  the  fact 
that  the  Markhams  took  in  pupils  —  generally  chil- 
dren whose  parents  were  in  India.  George  had 
reason  to  believe  that  his  mother  regretted  that 
she  had  not  known  this  before  she  engaged  Miss 
Arnold.  Though  he  would  have  preferred  to  be 
taught  by  Eleanor  Markham,  who  made  him  think 
of  the  Holy  Women,  he  hoped  that  no  change 
would  be  made  now.  Without  understanding  the 
reason,  for  the  matter  was  never  discussed  in  his 
presence,  he  felt  the  difference  between  his  father 
and  mother  on  the  subject  of  church.  His  father 
was  quite  civil  to  the  Markhams,  and  at  harvest 
festival  would  even  send  vegetables,  fruit  and 
flowers  to  the  church,  but  George  felt  that  he  would 
not  like  him  to  be  a  clergyman,  and  more  than  any- 
thing he  dreaded  a  dispute  between  grown-up  peo- 
ple, particularly  with  himself  as  the  subject. 

It  was  a  little  girl  from  the  vicarage  who  first 
awakened  in  George  the  idea  that  his  own  feelings 
about  the  world  might  be  respectable.  It  happened 


44  THE  CATFISH 

soon  after  the  revealing  conversation  about  the 
clock  and  barometer.  The  little  girl  was  not  really 
a  pupil  of  the  Markhams;  she  was  an  Indian  child, 
at  school  in  Cleeve,  the  residential  part  of  Barstow, 
and  spending  her  holidays  at  the  vicarage.  Her 
name  was  Mary  Festing.  On  first  hearing  it, 
George  thought  of  somebody  sad  and  remote,  as 
became  an  Indian  child.  He  could  never  believe 
that  an  Indian  child  was  quite  English,  or  that 
its  parents  were  not  somehow  to  blame.  Color  was 
lent  to  this  by  the  fact  that  one  Indian  child  he 
had  known  at  the  vicarage,  was  in  the  habit  of 
swearing.  Eleanor  Markham  brought  Mary  Fest- 
ing to  tea.  Directly  he  saw  her,  George  recognized 
that  she  fitted  the  conception  inspired  by  her  name 
and  unfortunate  birth.  She  was  thin,  pale  and 
black-haired,  with  slant  eyes  and  cold  hands,  very 
grave  and  polite  in  her  manners.  She  was  just 
eleven,  two  years  older  than  himself.  On  touching 
her  hand  he  was  conscious  of  a  strange  thrill,  as 
if  he  had  been  introduced  to  somebody  out  of  the 
Arabian  Nights.  She  struck  him  as  being  finer  in 
texture  than  anybody  he  had  ever  met,  and  he  ex- 
pected her  to  smell  of  spices.  He  observed  that  his 
mother  was  unusually  tender  to  Mary  Festing,  and 
this  confirmed  his  opinion  that  her  parents  had 


THE  CATFISH  45 

wronged  her.  He  also  observed  that  his  mother 
\vas  gently  committing  Mary  to  him;  she  smiled  as 
she  looked  from  one  to  the  other.  This,  while  it 
pleased  him  secretly,  put  him  on  guard,  and  at  tea- 
time  he  was  shy  and  awkward.  Eleanor  Markham 
did  not  stop  to  tea.  Walter  was  inclined  to  chaff 
the  visitor,  whom  he  evidently  regarded  as  "  a  little 
old  woman  ",  and  Amelia  to  giggle.  . 

During  tea-time  it  began  to  rain,  so  that  the 
visitor  must  be  entertained  in  the  nursery.  Walter, 
who  was  now  more  or  less  independent  of  weather, 
generously  offered  to  join  the  party. 

For  a  time  the  entertainment  was  rather  formal. 
Amelia  exhibited  her  dolls,  persistently  engaged  in 
various  domestic  occupations  on  the  shelves  of  a 
tall  cupboard,  while  Walter  made  funny  remarks, 
and  George  rather  pointedly  turned  over  the  leaves 
of  his  books,  with  such  leading  questions  as,  "  Has 
anybody  seen  my  Pilgrim's  Progress?  "  He  knew 
perfectly  well  that  he  wanted  to  attract  Mary  Fest- 
ing  without  seeming  to.  She  was  obviously  bored 
by  Amelia's  dolls,  and  Walter's  funny  remarks  did 
not  amuse  her.  But  when  Walter  turned  the  at- 
tention upon  George's  end  of  the  nursery  with: 
"Made  anything  lately?"  George  became  shy  and 
said  gruffly : 


46  THE  CATFISH 

"  Oh,  nothing  much." 

"  George  is  always  making  machines  that  won't 
work,"  said  Walter  with  a  grin. 

George  was  pleased  to  observe  that  Mary  received 
the  information  with  cold  politeness.  Anybody 
could  see  that  she  was  not  interested  in  machines. 
As  for  the  slight  upon  his  ability,  he  could  have 
explained  that  his  object  was  not  to  make  things 
work,  but  to  see  and  show  how  they  worked.  Be- 
sides, he  was  not  allowed  glue  or  solder,  and  soap 
is  a  poor  substitute. 

"  But  George  is  rather  clever,"  said  Walter  in  a 
patronizing  tone. 

"  I'm  not,"  he  said  indignantly. 

Mary  glanced  at  him  out  of  her  narrow  eyes,  and 
he  felt  that  she  disapproved  of  what  appeared  to 
be  false  modesty.  But  he  didn't  want  her  to  think 
him  clever.  Presently  she  went  to  a  window,  and 
he  was  aching  to  ask  her  had  she  been  to  the  Camp 
and  did  she  know  the  Waterfall.  Walter  said: 

"  You  should  hear  the  blacksmith  swear ! " 

This,  considering  her  origin,  was  lamentably  bad 
taste,  but  Mary  did  not  seem  to  hear  it.  She 
turned  to  George  and  said :  "  Do  you  write 
po'try?" 

Walter's  yell  of  derision  covered  George's  "  No." 


THE  CATFISH  47 

He  said  it  unguardedly,  wondering  why  he  had 
never  thought  of  writing  po'try,  and  regretting  that 
he  hadn't. 

"  I  believe  he  does,"  said  Walter. 

"  I  don't,  I  don't,"  said  George  furiously. 

"  I  do,"  said  Mary  quietly,  and  Walter  did  not 
laugh  any  more. 

The  pictures  interested  her  more  than  anything 
else  in  the  nursery,  and  George  began  to  revise 
his  determination  not  to  become  an  artist.  This 
was  the  time  of  the  Russo-Turkish  War,  and  among 
the  colored  plates  from  Christmas  numbers  there 
were  several  recent  illustrations  from  the  front 
pinned  to  the  walls.  About  the  war  itself  George 
had  the  haziest  ideas,  but  he  hoped  it  would  go  on. 
His  father  and  Walter  were  strongly  pro-Turkish, 
because,  as  they  said,  the  Turks  were  such  good 
soldiers,  but  George  had  a  sneaking  regard  for  the 
Russians,  because  he  had  heard  his  mother  say: 
"  After  all,  they  are  Christians."  Remembering 
that  Mary  Festing's  father  was  a  soldier,  and  for 
anything  he  knew  fighting  in  this  very  war,  he 
watched  her  progress  round  the  walls  with  a  thrill 
of  anticipation.  There  was  one  picture  in  partic- 
ular that  appealed  to  him  strangely.  It  represented 
a  Servian  woman,  with  her  child  in  her  arms,  being 


48  THE  CATFISH 

rescued  from  a  savage-looking  Turk  by  a  Russian 
on  horseback,  who  had  run  the  villain  through  with 
his  lance.  The  artist  had  made  the  picture  sym- 
bolical rather  than  actual  and  given  the  Russian  a 
shield  with  a  cross  on  it.  Whether  or  not  the 
picture  was  a  fair  summary  of  the  war,  George 
did  not  know  or  care.  He  did  not  properly  know 
who  the  Servians  were,  or  where  exactly  they  came 
in,  but  the  name  appealed  to  him  as  meaning  some- 
thing gentle,  partly  on  account  of  the  suggestion 
of  "  servant  ".  The  picture  excited  in  him  a  feel- 
ing that  he  could  not  give  a  name  to  —  yearning 
tenderness  and  passionate  protectiveness  combined, 
such  as  he  felt  toward  little  yellow  ducklings,  kit- 
tens and  certain  flowers.  He  hoped  that  Mary 
Festing  would  notice  the  picture,  and  when  she  came 
to  it  and  stopped,  he  trembled  in  sympathy.  He 
was  glad,  however,  that  she  said  nothing. 

Walter,  who  had  been  following  Mary  round, 
with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  whistling,  and  occa- 
sionally giving  her  the  benefit  of  his  knowledge  to 
explain  an  incident  of  the  war,  suddenly  exclaimed : 
"  I  say,  you  kids;  let's  play  Russians  and  Turks." 

They  all  said,  "  Yes,  let's  " ;  but  only  George 
could  understand  the  extent  of  Walter's  good- 


THE  CATFISH  49 

nature.  In  his  gratitude  he  forgot  discretion  and 
said  impulsively: 

"  Mary  ought  to  be  a  Servian  princess." 

She  darted  him  a  glance  of  understanding.  Ame- 
lia unthinkingly  agreed  to  the  proposal,  but  Walter 
began  to  demur. 

"Oh,  that's  rot,"  he  said.  "Who  are  the 
Servians?  They're  nobody;  a  potty  little  people. 
You  always  want  to  drag  in  something  that  nobody 
has  ever  heard  of.  And  besides,  there  are  not 
enough  of  us.  No;  you  and  Mary  will  have  to 
be  Russians,  and  Amelia  and  I  will  be  Turks." 

George  hesitated  and  looked  at  Mary.  But  she 
avoided  his  eyes,  and  her  expression  told  him  noth- 
ing. He  thought  her  unfair;  how  could  he  explain, 
even  to  himself,  why  he  wanted  her  to  be  a  Servian 
princess?  Amelia,  anxious  only  to  be  conciliatory, 
began,  "  Couldn't  we  — "  but  George  cut  her  short 
with,  "  Oh,  very  well,"  and  Walter  said,  "  Right-o!  " 

But  they  had  reckoned  without  the  visitor.  With 
blazing  eyes  she  advanced  upon  George,  who  backed 
in  consternation.  "  You  sneak !  "  she  said.  "  You 
coward !  You  —  you  —  you  liar !  You  are  clever, 
an'  you  do  write  po'try,  an'  you  do  hate  the  Turks 
and  the  Russians,  and  I've  a  jolly  good  mind  to 


50  THE  CATFISH 

smack  your  head.  /  don't  want  to  be  a  Servian 
princess,  but  —  but  —  but  —  Oh,  I  hate  you  and 
I  wish  I  had  never  seen  you ! " 

The  last  words  rose  to  a  squeak  as  she  burst  into 
tears.  With  a  stamp  of  her  foot  and  a  gritting  of 
her  teeth  she  turned  and  fled  from  the  room,  and 
they  heard  her  hurtling  down  the  stairs. 

"  You've  done  it,  Master  Walter,"  said  nurse 
composedly,  as  she  put  aside  her  sewing  and  pre- 
pared to  leave  the  room.  "  Whenever  you  come  up 
into  the  nursery  there's  trouble." 

"  I  don't  care,"  said  Walter,  but  sought  a  chair. 
The  other  two  had  already  sat  down  instinctively 
to  recover  from  the  assault  upon  their  feelings. 
Amelia  began  to  whimper,  and  Walter  said :  "  Shut 
up !  She's  a  young  savage."  George  said  nothing. 
Scared  and  humiliated  as  he  was,  he  knew  that  he 
would  not  have  missed  that  splendid  fury  for  worlds. 

Nurse  came  back  to  say  that  Master  George  was 
to  go  down  to  his  mama. 

Faced  with  the  wrath  of  his  elders,  George  found 
himself  not  afraid  but  -indignant.  It  wasn't  his 
fault,  and  it  wasn't  Walter's  fault,  he  said  to  him- 
self as  he  marched  down  the  stairs  with  a  new  feel- 
ing of  security. 

He  found  his  mother  where  they  had  left  her  in 


THE  CATFISH  51 

the  dining-room,  with  Mary's  sobbing  head  in  her 
lap. 

"  It  wasn't  our  fault  — "  he  began  stormily, 
but  his  mother  said : 

"  Ssh,  George,"  and  then :  "  You've  hurt  Mary's 
feelings." 

"  He  hasn't,"  came  from  her  lap. 

His  mother  smiled,  and  stroking  the  black  hair, 
continued : 

"  You  wanted  to  rescue  her  —  was  that  it?  " 

"  I  didn't,  I  didn't,"  he  said,  coloring  furiously. 

"  Well,"  said  his  mother,  "  you  should  stick  up 
for  your  friends." 

That  struck  him  as  horribly  unfair.  It  wasn't 
his  friends  but  his  most  sacred  feelings  that  he  had 
been  required  to  stick  up  for. 

"  She  isn't  a  friend  of  mine,"  he  said,  wondering 
at  his  own  boldness. 

"  For  your  ideals,  then,"  said  his  mother. 

That  was  outrageous  —  as  if  one  had  been 
plunged  into  the  catechism  at  dinner-time  —  and 
George  began  to  kick  the  carpet  sullenly. 

"  You  can  go,  George,"  said  his  mother,  and  that, 
of  course,  made  him  feel  in  the  wrong,  and  he  be- 
gan: 

"I'll  say  I'm  sorry  if — "  but  his  mother  said: 


52  THE  CATFISH 

"  That  will  do,  George,"  and  Mary  said :  "  I  don't 
want  to  speak  to  him." 

His  report  to  the  nursery  was :  "  Oh,  it's  all 
right;  she's  blubbing,  but  mother  isn't  cross."  At 
the  same  time  he  felt  acutely  dissatisfied  —  as  if 
he  had  fallen  between  two  stools.  Loyalty  apart, 
he  didn't  feel  angry  with  Walter,  nor  did  it  strike 
him  as  unjust  that  Mary  should  have  gone  for  him 
and  not  for  Walter.  He  had  played  into  her  hands ; 
it  served  him  right  for  giving  himself  away.  He 
was  not  yet  capable  of  such  an  axiom  as :  "  Women 
are  the  devil,"  but  his  reflections  amounted  to  that. 
Behind  it  all  was  the  conviction,  not  so  much  un- 
willing as  distrusted  for  its  audacity,  that  the  women 
were  right,  and  that  in  a  world  of  people  like  Mary 
Festing,  Eleanor  Markham  and  his  mother  every- 
thing would  go  very  smoothly. 

From  this  time  he  began  to  hold  up  his  head  a 
little  in  his  world  of  reality.  He  began  to  develop 
a  sense  of  humor,  and  with  his  admiration  for 
people  like  Walter  was  mingled  a  sort  of  compassion. 
They  were  so  easily  taken  in.  Walter,  for  example, 
believed  that  George  was  getting  on  at  cricket  and 
boxing.  It  was  true  that  he  was  batting  straighter 
and  learning  to  guard  his  head,  but  that  was  not 
because  he  understood  the  rules  any  better,  but 


THE  CATFISH  53 

because  he  had  discovered  that  if  you  laid  yourself 
out  at  the  right  angle,  so  to  speak,  things  had  a 
way  of  doing  themselves.  What  you  didn't  do  was 
more  important  than  what  you  did;  it  was  all 
a  matter  of  crafty  evasion.  It  was  the  same  in 
social  intercourse.  He  found  that  by  avoiding  the 
point  and  using  the  words  that  other  people  used 
he  could  talk  about  things  of  which  he  was  entirely 
ignorant,  and  still  be  listened  to  with  respect.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  stated  a  plain  truth,  they 
stared,  or  mocked,  or  got  angry. 

He  did  not  see  Mary  Festing  again  except  on 
purely  formal  occasions  in  the  company  of  grown- 
ups, when  he  avoided  her.  She  knew  too  much. 
His  feelings  toward  her  were  oddly  mingled  of 
liking  and  resentment.  He  liked  to  think  about  her 
and  to  imagine  her  as  an  audience,  but  in  her  com- 
pany he  felt  only  the  desire  to  insult  her.  She, 
on  her  part,  treated  him  with  lofty  indifference, 
and  Walter  told  him,  to  his  secret  pleasure,  that 
she  thought  him  a  rude  little  boy. 

In  after  life  George  recognized  that  the  next  two 
years  were  among  his  happiest.  He  was  sufficiently 
at  home  in  the  world  of  affairs,  lessons,  orthodox 
games  and  polite  conversation  to  escape  notice  — 
if  not  to  win  applause  —  and  in  his  own  world  he 


54  THE  CATFISH 

had  the  support  of  another  opinion.  He  would  not 
have  recognized  the  opinion  to  be  incarnated  in  the 
person  of  Mary  Festing,  and  probably  it  was  not 
consistently  so,  but  was  referred  to  this  person  or 
that  among  his  acquaintances;  but  wherever  he 
went,  now,  he  had  the  companionship  of  an  imag- 
inary intelligence  outside  his  own.  Whenever  the 
intelligence  assumed  a  form  inconveniently  human 
—  as  in  the  person  of  his  mother  or  Eleanor  Mark- 
ham —  he  could  always  bluff,  and  he  found  that 
with  his  mother,  at  any  rate,  a  humorous  attitude 
served  as  well  as  any  other  —  though  she  occasion- 
ally looked  wistful,  as  desiring  fuller  confidence. 

The  basis  of  his  world  remained  the  place  —  the 
house  and  the  surrounding  country.  He  was  now 
allowed  a  certain  amount  of  liberty  to  go  about 
alone,  and  with  every  excursion  fear  became  more 
and  more  absorbed  in  love.  The  beginning  and 
end  of  his  world  was  the  Bourne.  It  summed  up 
and  explained  everything,  physical  and  emotional. 
The  reason  was  partly  topographical,  because  most 
of  the  acquaintances  whose  homes  were  the  pretexts 
for  his  excursions  lived  upon  the  banks  of  the 
stream.  None  of  them  had  anything  so  thrilling 
as  the  Waterfall,  but  several  enjoyed  the  mystery 
of  woods,  with  probable  caves.  As  a  rule,  how- 


THE  CATFISH  55 

ever,  George's  young  friends  ignored  their  advan- 
tages and  tiresomely  preferred  playing  on  lawns  or 
in  fields  to  the  possibilities  of  exploration;  and  the 
dawdling  journey  up  or  down  the  stream  was  always 
more  to  him  than  were  the  amenities  of  arrival. 

He  carried  the  Bourne  in  his  heart,  and  it  watered 
his  dreams.  For  most  of  its  length  it  ran  clear 
and  explicable,  a  brown-backed  river  of  all  work, 
with  mills  and  quarries  at  intervals  to  keep  it  human. 
The  mills  were  generally  undershot,  and  so  rather 
furtive  in  character  —  as  people  who  concealed  their 
motives  —  and  they  had  the  incidental  interests  of 
weirs  and  eel-traps.  The  quarries,  though  still  hu- 
man, were  bolder  in  their  effects;  they  made 
cliffs,  echoed  to  blasting,  and,  moreover,  supported 
a  red-stained  race  of  quarrymen,  proverbial  for 
lawlessness.  But  in  the  life  of  the  Bourne  there 
were  certain  episodes  —  let  alone  the  Waterfall  and 
the  dark  moments  where  it  had  drowned  its  man 
—  which  betrayed  without  explaining  a  nature  that 
was  beyond  the  reach  of  human  understanding;  a 
nature  that  found  expression  in  the  sound  of 
"Doom!" 

There  was  one  place  in  particular  that  haunted 
George's  imagination  by  day  and  night.  Called, 
with  sacred  implication,  the  Grove,  it  followed  upon 


56  THE  CATFISH 

the  menace  of  the  Waterfall.  Between  them  a  mill, 
reached  by  a  stone  bridge  with  a  graduated  flood- 
board  for  warning  —  once  the  bridge  had  been  car- 
ried away  —  gave  a  specious  atmosphere  of 
domesticity.  The  dwelling-house  of  the  mill  over- 
hung the  stream,  with  a  little  window  as  if  to  spy 
upon  it  between  its  deep  glide  from  under  the  bridge 
and  broken  entrance  into  the  Grove.  The  mill 
garden  gave  access  to  the  Grove,  but  George,  not 
being  on  familiar  terms  with  the  miller,  never  went 
that  way.  He  approached  the  Grove  by  the  fields 
that  flanked  it  above  on  either  side.  Climbing  a 
broken  wall,  he  was  upon  enchanted  ground:  a 
declivity,  shaggy  with  trees  and  undergrowth,  which 
ran  down  to  the  Bourne,  now  secretly  murmuring. 
A  little  stone  bridge,  a  single  ivied  arch  without 
parapets,  the  masterpiece  of  a  forgotten  builder, 
connected  one  wooded  flank  of  the  Grove  with  the 
other.  To  George's  companions  the  Grove  was  a 
favorite  place  for  picnics:  primrosing,  paddling, 
blackberrying  and  nutting  in  their  seasons,  and 
games  that  grown-ups  could  share,  such  as  hide-and- 
seek.  Even  Walter  and  Amelia  were  not  wholly 
insensitive  to  the  atmosphere  of  the  Grove,  and 
were  occasionally  subject  to  panic  terrors  —  to  be 
explained  loftily  afterward  on  the  same  grounds 


THE  CATFISH  57 

of  poachers  —  but  to  George  the  place  was  an  eter- 
nal question.  He  felt  that  here,  if  anywhere,  the 
secret  of  the  Bourne  was  enshrined;  the  meaning 
of  "  Doom!  "  unraveled  to  such  as  could  hear  with 
gloss  and  commentary  by  the  birds.  If  he  had 
read  Siegfried  at  this  age  he  would  have  known 
that  here  was  the  place  of  illumination. 

Wanting  the  key,  he  brooded  continually  over  the 
enigma.  The  Grove  meant  something;  something, 
too,  connected  with  his  own  destiny.  Throughout 
his  life  he  was  often  there  in  dreams.  He  would 
climb  the  broken  wall,  make  his  way  down  through 
the  undergrowth  and  follow  the  murmuring  Bourne 
to  where  its  right  bank  expanded  into  a  lawny  clear- 
ing. At  the  far  end  were  two  tall  fir-trees,  close 
together  and  very  slender,  their  tops  making  a  dark 
gesture  upon  the  sky.  Always  that  was  the  end  of 
his  dream :  the  dark  gesture  of  the  fir-trees  as  if  they 
said,  "  Nevermore ! "  When  he  first  read  The 
Raven  he  understood  that  the  bird  was  brother  to 
the  fir-trees. 

In  reality  he  knew  what  was  beyond  them.  Once 
out  of  the  Grove  the  Bourne  had  no  secret,  but 
watered  fields  and  parks  all  the  way  to  its  degrada- 
tion by  a  suburb  before  it  joined  the  Arden  at 
Barstow.  Whatever  meaning  the  Bourne  had  in 


58  THE  CATFISH 

his  life  was  to  be  discovered  between  the  Waterfall 
and  the  Grove. 

But  though  the  Bourne  was  the  main  artery  of  his 
emotional  life,  as  it  was  the  core  of  his  landscape, 
it  by  no  means  exhausted  the  wonder  of  the  neigh- 
borhood. There  was  the  Camp,  for  example.  To 
reach  it  you  followed  the  road  from  the  smithy, 
alongside  the  Bourne,  and  at  about  half  a  mile 
climbed  a  steep  ascent  through  a  wood  —  the  same 
that  made  the  harp  of  dawn.  You  came  out  upon 
a  great  circular  plain,  with  sweeping  mounds  and 
trenches  half  smothered  in  bracken.  Higher  still 
was  the  church  upon  its  long  Down,  keeping  a  watch- 
ful eye,  George  thought,  upon  the  dust  of  Pagan 
Rome.  From  here  you  could  see  the  distant  Severn 
through  larches  that  forever  sighed  about  Caesar. 

Partly  because  he  knew  that  the  Bourne  was  only 
a  trickle  to  the  Arden,  and  the  Arden  a  gutter  to 
the  Severn,  George  always  found  himself  taking  a 
larger  view  of  life  in  general  when  he  stood  upon 
the  Camp.  He  came  here  when  things  had  got 
into  a  muddle  through  being  looked  at  too  closely. 
It  corrected  the  proportions  of  both  space  and  time. 
Even  the  air  was  clearer  upon  the  Camp,  and  the 
smell  of  thyme  was  enjoyed  with  a  double  meaning. 
George  did  not  know  much  about  the  Romans,  but 


THE  CATFISH  59 

he  imagined  them  to  be  stoical,  and  the  sense  of 
dead  Romans  ten  deep  under  his  feet  gave  him 
support  in  his  own  affairs.  There  were  other 
memorials  of  Rome  in  the  neighborhood;  wide 
marching  roads,  a  whole  chain  of  camps  on  the 
wooded  ridge  that,  except  at  one  point,  hid  the 
Severn,  and  at  a  distant  farm  the  remains  of  a 
villa.  From  George's  Camp  none  of  them  was 
visible,  and  the  villa  he  had  not  even  seen ;  but  they 
were  present  in  his  mind  as  he  paced  the  thyme- 
scented  plateau,  and  they  gave  him  confidence. 

From  the  Camp  it  was  easy  to  reach  the  Down 
which,  with  less  definite  inspiration,  commanded  an 
even  wider  prospect.  Below  the  country  unrolled 
like  a  map  all  the  way  to  the  hidden  Severn,  and 
beyond  were  the  faint  hills  of  Wales.  The  knowl- 
edge that  this  was  the  very  "  Down  so  free "  of 
the  part  song  provided  a  general  atmosphere  of 
adventure.  From  here  both  space  and  time,  though 
enlarged,  were  gloriously  mixed  and  moving;  not 
stoicism,  but  progress  was  the  moral.  To  George 
the  prospect  from  the  Down  was  never  for  a  moment 
still.  The  sky  rolled,  the  white  roads  marched  and 
forked,  and  one  century  trod  upon  the  heels  of 
another.  The  galloping  shade  of  Hickory  Stern 
with  his  bride  a-pillion  was  not  more  romantic  than 


6o  THE  CATFISH 

the  crawling  train,  nor  the  Haunted  House  than 
the  tall  chimneys  of  Barstow.  The  world,  past, 
present  and  future,  was  at  your  feet.  By  rounding 
the  shoulder  of  the  Down  you  had  in  comfortable 
perspective  the  more  intimate  problems  of  life :  im- 
mediately below  the  vicarage  garden,  beyond  the 
Camp,  and  hidden  by  its  fringe  of  wood,  the  rich 
perplexity  of  joys,  hopes  and  fears  that  was  Bourne- 
side.  From  the  Down  even  the  Bourne  could  be 
regarded  as  running  water  with  some  trick  of  asso- 
ciations. 

All  George's  further  excursions  were  westward. 
The  Severn,  too  big  and  too  far  for  personal  asso- 
ciations, was  in  a  double  sense  the  Bourne  of  his 
world,  and  it  called  him  strangely.  In  all  his  young 
days  he  never  got  to  it  alone,  but  the  wooded  ridge 
that  commanded  it  was  not  beyond  a  long  after- 
noon's walk.  From  here  he  could  look  down  upon 
the  Flats  and  in  imagination  smell  the  ooze  and 
share  the  traffic  of  the  great  river.  Not  only  the 
ports  of  Wales,  but  America,  India  and  Africa 
were  made  free  to  him  by  the  shining  highway  of 
the  West.  At  rare  intervals  he  was  actually  taken 
to  the  Severn,  by  trap,  at  a  point  that  was  almost 
overcrowded  with  materials  for  wonder.  It  was 
the  place  where  Saint  Augustine  met  the  British 


THE  CATFISH  61 

chiefs  and  where  the  steam  ferry  crossed  to  Wales 
—  for  the  Tunnel  was  not  bored  yet ;  it  commanded 
the  mouth  of  the  Wye,  and  its  red  and  white  cliff 
enshrined  not  only  alabaster  —  concrete  earnest  of 
the  New  Jerusalem  —  but  the  fossil  relics  of  pre- 
historic life.  When  in  after  years  George  heard 
that  hopeful  men  were  digging  and  dredging  in  this 
neighborhood  for  the  secret  of  Shakespeare,  it 
seemed  to  him  not  unreasonable.  Anything  might 
be  found  there. 

For  many  years  this  was  his  nearest  acquaintance 
with  the  sea.  Except,  of  course,  for  his  periodical 
visits  to  Barstow,  where  ships  came  up  among  the 
houses,  and  if  not  ivory,  apes  and  peacocks,  at  any 
rate  "  bales  of  merchandise  "  could  be  seen  upon 
the  quays.  But  as  yet  Barstow  was  an  impression 
too  overwhelmingly  rich  and  confused  for  anything 
but  headache.  The  crowded  pictures  overlapped ; 
the  chanting  of  sailors  and  briny  and  tarry  smells 
got  mixed  up  with  the  taste  of  ham  which  father, 
neglecting  the  bank  and  so  arresting  the  currency 
of  the  world,  provided  for  you  and  mother  in  an 
Italian  restaurant  between  shopping  and  shopping. 
George  was  not  very  much  interested  in  what  he 
ate,  but  it  always  seemed  to  him  that  ham  was 
rather  a  poor  pretext  for  such  reckless  interference 


62  THE  CATFISH 

with  the  business  of  the  world  —  particularly  in  a 
frescoed  room  that  feigned  the  Sunny  South. 
Something  pink  and  foaming  to  the  accompaniment 
of  music  and  dancing,  with  vine-leaves  about,  and 
the  police  coming  in  at  the  end  to  recall  his  father 
to  duty  would  have  been  more  appropriate.  Often 
he  was  sick  the  next  day,  and  his  general  impression 
of  Barstow  v/as  that  it  was  a  grand  but  disorderly 
place  —  rather  like  Vanity  Fair  in  Pilgrim's 
Progress. 

As  yet  he  had  found  no  means  of  expression  for 
the  quivering  response  of  his  nature  to  the  sights 
and  sounds  about  him.  "  Po'try  "  he  tried,  but  it 
remained  a  mechanical  exercise,  a  barrier  rather 
than  a  channel,  with  only  a  word  here  and  there 
that  touched  reality.  He  drew  and  painted,  but 
for  memory  and  elucidation  rather  than  expression, 
and  it  was  more  often  a  map  than  a  picture  that 
recorded  the  wonder  of  an  afternoon.  Music,  per- 
haps, came  nearest  to  the  function  of  a  language. 
Most  things,  seen,  felt,  smelled,  or  tasted,  as  well  as 
heard,  seemed  to  have  their  symbol  in  sound;  the 
music  of  dawn  was  repeated  more  faintly  at  sunset 
when  the  tops  of  the  fir-trees  in  the  Grove  for  a 
moment  glowed  and  thrilled ;  but  since  George  had 
not  begun  to  learn  music,  and  none  of  his  family 


THE  CATFISH  63 

played  or  sang,  he  had  to  rely  on  the  organ  in 
church  for  the  articulate  expression  of  his  feelings 
—  with  the  constant  risks  of  betrayal  into  blushing. 
To  his  mother  he  remained  dumb.  He  loved  her 
and  he  would  have  been  glad  of  some  channel  of 
communication  for  the  confidence  she  so  evidently 
desired ;  but,  somehow,  words  did  not  seem  to  be 
the  channel.  At  the  back  of  his  mind  was  the 
idea  that  he  was  not  meant  to  say,  write,  paint  or 
play  his  feelings,  but  live  them.  Then  his  mother 
would  understand. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  only  thing  that  bothered  him  was  the  sense 
of  failure.  He  would  have  to  do  something 
some  day,  and  he  was  being  prepared  for  nothing. 
Walter  had  already  left  Mr.  Shipway's  for  Barstow 
Grammar  School,  but  no  sign  had  been  made  that 
George  was  to  follow  him  to  Mr.  Shipway's.  He 
was  now  nearly  twelve.  Could  it  be  possible  that 
his  parents  did  not  consider  him  worth  sending  to 
school  at  all?  In  that  case  he  supposed  he  would 
have  to  be  a  carpenter  or  go  to  work  in  one  of  the 
quarries  or  even  down  a  coal-mine.  Except  for  the 
disgrace  to  his  family  he  would  not  have  minded 
any  of  those  occupations,  and  he  thought  his 
parents  rather  unpractical  in  discouraging  his 
friendships  with  the  carpenter,  the  blacksmith,  the 
bootmaker  and  other  tradesmen.  He  envied  the 
boys  who  assisted  them,  partly  because  they  wore 
white  coats  and  corduroy  trousers,  and  he  pre- 
ferred their  company  to  that  of  the  boys  whose 
acquaintance  he  made  through  Walter.  He  was 
now  just  too  good  at  orthodox  games  to  be  popular 

64 


THE  CATFISH  65 

as  a  butt,  and  not  good  enough  to  become  a  leader. 
Moreover,  Mr.  Shipway's  pupils  despised  him  for 
being  still  under  a  governess,  while  the  working 
boys  were  inclined  to  admire  him  for  his  book- 
learning.  He  did  not  connect  book-learning  with 
fitness  for  any  respectable  occupation,  nor  did 
Walter's  friends  encourage  him  to  believe  that  book- 
learning  was  the  real  meaning  of  school. 

That  year  George  and  Amelia  had  whooping- 
cough,  and  afterward  George  did  not  seem  to 
recover.  He  felt  languid  and  at  the  same  time 
restless,  and  sometimes  he  was  afraid  that  his 
heart  was  going  to  jump  out  of  his  mouth.  One 
morning  he  was  told  to  stop  in  bed,  and  Doctor 
Fleetwood  came  to  see  him.  Doctor  Fleetwood  was 
brown  and  leathery,  and  walked  with  bent  knees  — 
conditions  that  George  supposed  to  be  due  to  baked 
apples  for  breakfast  and  riding  too  much  on  horse- 
back. The  doctor  put  on  his  glasses  with  both 
hands  and  said,  "  Well,  you're  a  skinny  fellow." 
George  said  he  couldn't  help  it,  and  the  doctor  said, 
in  a  determined  voice,  "  We'll  see  about  that,"  and 
put  a  little  cold  thermometer  under  his  arm,  tell- 
ing him  to  count  two  hundred.  George  counted 
four  hundred  and  seventy-two,  but  his  heart  got 
ahead  of  him,  and  he  was  glad  that  the  doctor  was 


66  THE  CATFISH 

there  to  put  it  back  in  case  it  jumped  out  on  the 
pillow.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  thermometer 
made  him  feel  better,  and  then  Doctor  Fleetwood 
began  to  thump  his  chest  and  back,  and  listen  for 
the  result  with  a  little  black  trumpet.  He  looked 
rather  grave,  and  mother,  who  had  been  smiling  at 
the  foot  of  the  bed,  walked  to  the  window  and  held 
her  hands  together. 

In  the  conversation  that  followed,  George  heard 
something  about  valves  and  a  murmur,  which  last 
he  connected  with  the  Children  of  Israel  and  com- 
plaining, and  he  said  in  a  cheerful  tone,  "  I'm  all 
right,  mother." 

Doctor  Fleetwood  laughed,  and  said:  "Of 
course  you  are,  young  sharper."  His  mother 
laughed  too,  but  rather  anxiously. 

After  that  morning,  George  felt  himself  sur- 
rounded by  an  atmosphere  of  consideration.  He 
was  not  allowed  to  play  cricket  for  the  rest  of  the 
summer  —  it  was  then  July  —  or  to  go  for  long 
walks,  but  was  told  to  sit  about  in  the  Orchard  and 
read.  For  a  time  he  supposed  that  he  was  going 
to  die,  and  that  explained  why  his  parents  had  not 
thought  him  worth  sending  to  school.  It  was  odd, 
in  that  case,  why  they  were  always  talking,  though 
obscurely,  about  his  future.  Everybody  seemed 


THE  CATFISH  67 

interested  in  him.  Even  Walter,  when  he  came 
home  in  the  evening,  would  look  at  him  with  an 
expression  of  mingled  envy  and  good-humored  dis- 
dain and  say,  "  Well,  how's  the  professor?  "  And 
Miss  Arnold  was  curiously  elated  about  him.  For 
some  reason  or  other  George's  father  had  altered 
his  opinion  of  Miss  Arnold  and  now  treated  her 
with  great  respect. 

Then  suddenly,  it  was  all  explained.  George 
was  to  go  right  away  to  a  proper  school.  So  far 
from  being  good  for  nothing,  he  was  regarded  as 
being  good  for  almost  anything  if,  as  his  father 
said,  he  made  use  of  his  opportunities. 

Privately,  George  decided  to  be  a  prime  minister, 
but  it  appeared  that  there  was  no  need  for  him  to 
make  up  his  mind  in  a  hurry.  He  was  to  have 
the  advantages  of  a  good  education.  Delighted  as 
he  was  at  the  idea  of  going  away  to  school,  George 
could  not  help  wishing  that  his  father  did  not  ex- 
pect so  much  of  him  or  that  he  would  say  exactly 
what  he  expected  and  explain  more  clearly  what 
the  advantages  of  a  good  education  were.  George 
had  great  admiration  for  his  father,  but  he  was 
half  afraid  that  there  must  be  a  misunderstanding 
somewhere  —  possibly  due  to  his  own  duplicity  at 
lessons.  His  father  was  a  master  of  affairs,  but 


68  THE  CATFISH 

George  doubted  his  knowing  his  way  about  the 
fields  of  learning.  This  did  not  imply  any  criti- 
cism, but  rather  the  reverse.  His  father  was  too 
big  for  such  things;  he  left  them  to  women.  If 
George  could  have  put  it  into  words,  he  would 
have  said  that  his  father  was  wise  but  not  clever. 
He  thought  of  him  as  connected  with  the  soil,  and 
his  feelings  toward  him  were  the  same  mixture  of 
love,  reverence  and  fear  that  he  felt  for  bulls  and 
other  large  animals.  He  hoped  that  Miss  Arnold 
had  not  taken  his  father  in. 

He  guessed  that  his  mother  was  at  the  bottom 
of  it.  When  she  talked  to  him  about  going  away 
to  school  she  held  him  tight,  but  her  eyes  were 
shining.  Something  she  said  about  Oxford 
prompted  him  to  say: 

"  Must  I  be  a  clergyman  ?  " 

His  mother  laughed,  and  kissed  him,  and  said: 

"  Not  if  you  don't  like ;  but  you  are  to  be  a  great 
man." 

George  sighed  as  he  wriggled  free.  Nobody 
seemed  to  be  able  to  give  him  any  practical  in- 
formation. 

However,  the  idea  of  going  away  to  school  was 
too  glorious  for  any  misgivings  to  spoil  it.  Even 
the  thought  of  the  examination  that  should  ex- 


THE  CATFISH  69 

pose  the  hollowness  of  his  pretensions  to  learning 
only  made  him  feel  reckless.  He  was  in  for  it 
now.  He  went  about  telling  everybody  that  he 
was  going  away  to  school:  Dicky  Dando;  the 
blacksmith's  boy,  who  at  once  promised  him  a  pis- 
tol; and  very  particularly  a  farmer  who  had  once 
called  him  "  a  young  softy  ",  because  he  had  wept 
over  a  dead  pigeon.  Then  he  had  to  make  special 
journeys  to  his  favorite  haunts:  the  Camp,  the 
Grove,  the  Down  and  the  hill  overlooking  the 
Severn;  to  see  how  it  felt  to  stand  there  knowing 
that  he  was  going  away  to  school.  He  felt  that 
the  Camp  and  the  Down  approved,  but  the  fir-trees 
in  the  Grove  murmured  a  warning.  "  Examina- 
tion !  "  they  said  ironically.  Something  kept  him 
from  thinking  about  going  away  to  school  in  the 
presence  of  the  Waterfall.  He  would  prefer  that 
the  Waterfall  should  not  know  until  he  was  actually 
gone. 

There  was  a  reason  for  this,  too  obscure  to  be 
put  into  articulate  language,  but  nevertheless  true. 
The  school  he  was  going  to  was  on  the  sea  —  in 
Cornwall  —  a  word  which  gave  him  the  picture  of 
a  plunging  headland  with  white  foam  at  its  base. 
The  Bourne  ran  into  the  Arden,  and  the  Arden 
into  the  Severn,  and  the  Severn  into  the  sea.  The 


70  THE  CATFISH 

map  told  him  that  St.  Piran's  might  almost  be 
called  upon  the  Severn  Sea.  Even  there  he  would 
be  dogged  by  the  Bourne.  He  wondered  if  above 
the  roaring  of  the  sea  he  would  still  hear  the  dull 
continuous  thunder  of  the  Waterfall.  He  could 
not  remember  when  it  had  not  been  the  ground- 
bass  of  his  life.  Even  when  recalling  the  dream- 
life  in  Barstow,  he  now  suspected  that  what  he  had 
taken  for  the  hum  of  traffic  was  in  reality  the  dull 
continuous  thunder  of  the  Waterfall  heard  from 
afar.  Convinced  that  his  destiny  was  in  some  way 
connected  with  running  water,  he  thought  it  ad- 
visable that  the  sea  should  not  know  beforehand 
that  he  came  from  the  Bourne.  It  gave  him  ex- 
traordinary relief  when  somebody  told  him  that 
St.  Piran's  was  really  upon  the  Atlantic;  the  word 
meant  something  leaping  up  and  down,  whereas 
the  Severn  Sea  could  only  mean  flowing,  flowing. 
The  Atlantic  would  have  forgotten  all  about  the 
Bourne.  Still,  it  was  advisable  not  to  think  about 
going  away  to  school  in  the  presence  of  the  Water- 
fall. 

In  the  world  of  affairs  he  was  already  a  hero. 
His  father  now  for  the  first  time  held  long  con- 
versations with  him  about  cricket  and  those  parts 
of  learning  that  were  only  remotely  connected 


THE  CATFISH  71 

with  real  books,  such  as  Latin,  and  Walter  called 
him  a  "  lucky  kid ".  As  for  Amelia,  she  hung 
upon  his  footsteps  all  day  long.  His  mother 
talked  to  him  principally  about  clothes  and  the 
care  of  his  health,  which  was  now  restored. 

The  only  person  who  seemed  dissatisfied  with 
the  idea  of  his  going  away  to  school  was  Eleanor 
Markham.  She  did  not  say  anything,  but  George 
could  feel  her  disapproval.  He  was  afraid  that 
she  saw  through  him.  Eleanor,  of  course,  knew  all 
about  schools  and  Oxford.  One  day  she  had  him 
to  tea  all  by  herself,  and  he  hoped  that  she  was 
going  to  give  him  some  practical  tips  about  the 
examination.  But  the  only  serious  thing  she  said 
was:  "Be  yourself,  my  dear  boy." 

He  said  that  he  would,  wondering  which  one, 
and  then,  thinking  that  it  might  remove  what  he 
supposed  to  be  the  cause  of  her  anxiety,  he  said: 

"Of  course,  I  needn't  be  a  clergyman  unless  I 
like." 

"  That's  all  right,"  she  said,  with  her  grave 
smile.  "  What  would  you  like  to  be  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  said. 

He  thought  her  rather  unkind  not  to  suggest 
something.  Evidently  she  was  determined  to  let 
him  rush  on  to  his  fate  in  the  shape  of  the  exami- 


72  THE  CATFISH 

nation.  But  by  this  time  he  was  prepared  to  take 
the  consequences.  He  would  have  been  away  to 
school.  Considering  the  expense,  there  was  even 
a  morbid  pleasure  in  imagining  how  his  father 
would  look  when  he  said :  "  George,  you  have 
ruined  me."  With  the  idea  of  showing  Eleanor 
that  he  didn't  care,  he  began  to  talk  rather  boast- 
fully about  how  far  and  how  high  he  could  jump. 
She  listened  politely,  but  he  could  see  that  she  was 
not  really  impressed,  and  after  that  he  decided 
that  on  the  whole  he  preferred  Rose.  She  was 
a  cheery  person,  and  she  had  already  told  him  that 
school  would  make  a  man  of  him,  which  was  all 
that  he  really  wanted. 

He  was  to  go  to  school  after  Easter.  As  the 
time  approached,  his  elation  was  not  lessened,  but 
complicated  by  regrets.  Disturbing  as  his  world 
was,  and  subject  to  the  inconvenient  curiosity  of 
such  people  as  his  mother,  Eleanor  Markham  and 
Mary  Festing,  he  was  leaving  it  all  behind.  It  was 
all  the  same  whether  he  stopped  away  in  triumph 
or  came  back  in  disgrace;  his  relations  with  the 
world  of  reality  would  never  be  quite  the  same 
again,  and  he  had  only  half  explored  it.  There 
were  all  sorts  of  things  he  wanted  to  know :  about 
his  mother,  the  Waterfall  and  the  Grove;  until 


THE  CATFISH  73 

now  he  had  been  content  to  let  them  wait,  but 
now  they  became  pressing.  It  was  like  leaving  a 
puzzling  tale  unfinished.  Anyhow,  it  was  too  late 
now,  and  he  was  glad  that  the  Easter  holidays  with 
Walter,  and  the  constant  come  and  go  of  com- 
panions interested  in  himself,  kept  him  from  won- 
dering. 

Then,  on  the  very  day  before  he  left  home,  he 
suddenly  slipped  up  in  the  world  of  other  people, 
where  he  was  beginning  to  know  his  way  about, 
and  tumbled  down  into  the  heart  of  his  own  world. 
He,  Walter  and  another  boy,  Tom  Burchell,  about 
two  years  older  than  himself,  had  spent  the  after- 
noon in  the  Grove  in  an  aimless  sort  of  way,  climb- 
ing trees,  damming  the  stream  with  large  stones  in 
the  attempt  to  catch  roach  in  their  hands,  and  gen- 
erally killing  time.  All  this,  of  course,  was  evi- 
dence of  Walter's  good-nature,  since  he  already 
talked  bass  and  might  have  been  playing  cricket 
with  older  friends.  Occasionally  he  would  remem- 
ber his  position  and  dissociate  himself  from  the 
other  two  by  pitting  them  in  some  trial  of  strength 
or  skill,  when  Tom  generally  won.  In  view  of 
to-morrow,  George  did  not  mind  this.  At  any 
time  he  had  very  little  of  the  competitive  spirit, 
particularly  with  people  he  did  not  like.  Tom 


74  THE  CATFISH 

Burchell,  who  was  the  son  of  the  local  auctioneer 
and  still  at  Mr.  Shipway's,  was  inclined  to  be  a 
bully.  George  knew  that  Tom  envied  his  going 
away,  and  it  was  partly  the  desire  not  to  seem  to 
swagger  that  kept  him  from  trying  to  outdo  him. 

At  tea-time,  they  dawdled  home  by  a  high  field 
on  the  farther  side  of  the  Bourne.  At  a  point 
opposite  the  foot  of  the  Orchard,  George  spied 
something  yellow  gleaming  in  the  low  ground  at 
the  water's  edge.  Running  down  the  bank,  he 
found  it  to  be  a  flag  iris,  the  first  he  had  seen  that 
year. 

The  extraordinary  delicacy  of  the  flower,  un- 
sheathed in  a  world  that  was  yet  unready,  touched 
him  strangely.  It  was  like  a  naked  soul.  Other 
flowers  were  beautiful,  but  they  had  by  comparison 
what  he  could  only  describe  as  a  woolliness,  a 
roughness  of  texture,  which  made  them  one  with 
their  surroundings.  The  iris  was  mystically  apart, 
and  it  aroused  in  him  a  yearning  tenderness  and 
passionate  protectiveness  combined.  By  a  natural 
association  it  recalled  the  picture  of  the  Servian 
woman,  and  Mary  Festing. 

He  plucked  the  flower,  and  as  he  followed  the 
others  at  a  little  distance,  he  kept  laying  the  petals 
against  his  cheek.  The  silken  touch  thrilled  him. 


THE  CATFISH  75 

The  flower  had  become  the  symbol  of  the  dis- 
turbing world  that  he  was  leaving.  When  Walter, 
turning  his  head  carelessly,  said,  "  What  have  you 
found,  young  'un?"  George,  made  wise  by  expe- 
rience, said,  "  Only  a  flower."  Walter  laughed 
good-naturedly  and  said :  "  Silly  kid,"  and  Tom 
said:  "Look  what's  going  to  school!" 

As  they  were  about  to  enter  the  house,  it  occurred 
to  George  that  he  could  not  take  the  flower  into  the 
presence  of  his  mother.  She  would  not  under- 
stand, or  rather,  she  would  understand  too  much, 
and  say  something  embarrassing  before  Tom.  He 
hesitated,  intending  to  slip  through  a  side  door 
into  the  Yard  and  so  to  the  kitchen.  Walter,  as 
host,  stood  back  from  the  front  door  and  said, 
"  Come  on,"  and  George  said,  "  Just  going  to 
put  my  flower  in  water."  Tom  said,  "Sappy!" 
George  laughed  and  was  about  to  turn  when  Tom, 
with  a  quick  movement,  cut  off  the  flower  in  his 
hand. 

The  next  moment  George  knew  that  he  had 
struck  Tom  full  upon  his  grinning  mouth.  He 
could  only  judge  what  expression  had  leaped  into 
his  own  eyes  by  the  look  of  absolute  terror  in  the 
eyes  of  the  other  boy  as  he  reeled  backward.  Tom 
was  not  a  coward  and,  recovering,  he  put  up  his 


76  THE  CATFISH 

hands.  But  he  was  already  demoralized,  and  as- 
tonished at  his  own  fury,  for  his  head  was  per- 
fectly clear  though  his  heart  was  burning,  George 
got  home  again  and  again  upon  the  fat  incred- 
ulous face.  He  knew  that  he  would  gladly  kill 
Tom  if  let  alone,  and  mingled  with  his  rage  was 
joy  at  the  confirmation  of  his  belief  that  these  peo- 
ple of  affairs  were  helpless  the  moment  they  were 
matched  with  conviction.  In  cold  blood  Tom  could 
box  better  than  he.  For  George  was  not  fighting 
blindly;  as  if  he  had  been  a  spectator,  he  knew 
that  he  was  using  every  scrap  of  science  he  had 
ever  learned.  All  that  he  was  or  knew  seemed  to 
come  to  his  aid,  now  that  he  was  fighting  in  a 
sacred  cause. 

Walter,  who  at  the  first  blow  had  cried,  "  Serve 
you  right,  Tom!"  tried  to  interfere.  He  cir- 
cled the  two,  laughing  nervously  and  saying: 
"  Let  him  alone,  George !  "  "  That's  enough !  " 
"  You've  licked  him !  "  And  George  knew  that  he 
was  getting  really  frightened.  Finally,  Walter 
seized  his  brother  from  behind  and  held  him  off, 
saying:  "  You'll  kill  him,  you  little  fool !  " 

"  I  mean  to,"  said  George  quietly,  and  struggled 
to  get  free.  But  Walter  held  him  firmly  and  then, 
seeing  the  look  of  utter  exhaustion  on  Tom's  face 


THE  CATFISH  77 

as  he  reeled  against  a  tree  on  the  Lawn,  George,  too, 
was  afraid,  and  put  his  hands  down. 

It  was  then  that  his  mother  came  to  the  front 
door.  Invisible  from  the  windows,  the  fight  had 
only  reached  her  as  a  confused  scuffling  until  her 
anxiety  was  aroused  by  the  absence  of  cries.  Some 
instinct  told  her  the  situation,  and  with,  "  Oh, 
George,  what  have  you  done ! "  she  ran  to  Tom, 
who  leaned  against  the  tree  mopping  his  face. 

The  touch  of  sympathy  was  the  last  straw,  and  he 
began  to  howl :  "  Lemme  go  home,  lemme  go 
home!" 

Mrs.  Tracy  tried  to  get  him  indoors  to  wash  his 
face,  but  he  would  not  be  persuaded,  and  after 
making  the  two  boys  shake  hands,  Walter,  only 
too  glad  to  escape  an  explanation,  took  the  dazed 
youth  away.  George  felt  curiously  calm.  He 
was  glad  that  he  had  thrashed  Tom,  but  he  was  not 
elated  at  his  own  prowess.  He  was  a  little  alarmed 
at  it,  as  if  not  he  but  some  power  behind  him  had 
won  the  victory.  The  only  explanation  he  would 
give  his  mother  was: 

"  He  broke  my  flower." 

He  knew  that  it  sounded  absurdly  inadequate, 
but  how  could  he  explain  the  sacred  rage  that  had 
filled  him?  He  could  not  explain  it  to  himself. 


78  THE  CATFISH 

It  was  all  mixed  up  with  Mary  Festing,  the  Servian 
woman,  his  mother,  Eleanor  Markham,  the  Bourne, 
going-away  and  half  a  dozen  other  things.  Not 
that  he  had  thought  of  each  or  any  of  them  while 
he  was  fighting.  On  the  contrary,  he  had  never 
felt  so  completely  one  with  himself;  more  even 
than  in  church  the  two  worlds  had  come  together. 
So,  with  a  sense  that,  though  the  words  were  in- 
adequate, the  statement  was  more  than  enough,  he 
kept  saying  sullenly: 

"  Well,  he  broke  my  flower." 

Grieved  and  perplexed,  his  mother  told  him  that 
he  had  better  go  up  to  his  bedroom  until  his  father 
came  home.  In  the  interval,  Walter  gave  his 
version  of  the  fight,  with  the  result  that  when 
George  was  called  to  his  father  he  saw  at  once  that 
no  serious  trouble  was  to  be  feared.  His  father 
was  both  astonished  and  grimly  amused.  He  eyed 
George  with  a  new  curiosity  and  addressed  him 
severely  but  with  what  George  felt  to  be  complete 
respect. 

"  You  must  learn  to  keep  your  temper,"  he  said. 
"  At  school  you  will  have  to  give  and  take." 

George  could  have  argued  the  matter.  He  had 
not  lost  but  found  his  temper,  and  besides,  the 
situation  could  not  occur  at  school.  One  did  not 


THE  CATFISH  79 

carry  one's  naked  soul  in  one's  hand  at  school. 
But  with  a  new  admiration  of  his  father's  gener- 
osity, he  said  humbly: 

"  I  won't  do  it  again,  father." 

"  At  any  rate,"  said  his  father,  "  there  doesn't 
seem  to  be  much  the  matter  with  your  heart." 

George  knew  that  he  had  still  to  reckon  with  his 
mother.  For  the  secorid  time  in  his  life,  his  re- 
flections amounted  to :  "  Women  are  the  devil." 
They  were  so  inquisitive;  they  could  not  let  well 
alone.  What  made  it  worse,  of  course,  was  that 
his  mother  would  know  very  well  that  one  part  of 
him  yearned  to  tell  her  all  about  it. 

As  he  had  expected,  his  mother  came  to  him 
after  he  was  in  bed.  She  carried  a  candle,  shading 
it  with  her  hand. 

"  Are  you  asleep,  George  ?  "  she  said  foolishly. 
Recognizing  in  her  tone  the  mixture  of  gravity  and 
secret  joy  that  he  both  loved  and  dreaded,  he  wished 
that  he  could  successfully  pretend  to  be  asleep. 

"  No,  mother,"  he  said,  in  a  tone  intended  to 
warn  her  that  it  was  no  use. 

He  heard  her  sigh  as  she  put  down  the  candle. 
After  a  moment  she  sat  down  on  the  bed  and  felt 
for  his  hand.  He  did  not  resist,  but  his  body 
stiffened  under  the  clothes. 


8o  THE  CATFISH 

"  George ! "  she  whispered,  and  gave  his  arm  a 
little  shake. 

"  I've  said  I'm  sorry,"  he  muttered  into  his 
pillow. 

"  But  you  are  going  away  to-morrow,"  she  said. 

He  knew  that  half  of  him  was  enjoying  her 
tenderness,  and  he  wished  he  could  see  how  she 
looked.  But  he  kept  his  eyes  closed. 

"  George !  "  she  whispered  again,  with  quivering 
lips  upon  his  cheek,  "  tell  me  all  about  it." 

"  I've  told  you,  mother,"  he  said  stubbornly. 

"Yes,  yes,"  she  murmured,  now  reckless  in  her 
love,  "but  why  did  you  fight?" 

"He  broke  my  flower,"  he  said. 

"  Ah,  but  it  wasn't  only  the  flower,"  she  said 
eagerly.  "  Tell  me  —  won't  you  tell  me,  George  ?  " 

The  appealing  note  hardened  him,  and  he  turned 
over  in  the  bed.  He  could  feel  his  mother  trem- 
bling, and  half  of  him  yearned  to  her.  But  he 
could  not  let  himself  go,  and  when  she  repeated 
more  coldly:  "Won't  you  tell  me?"  he  said,  in 
a  tone  of  irritation: 

"  I  really  don't  know  what  you  mean,  mother." 

She  waited  for  a  moment  and  then  stooping, 
kissed  him  quietly  and  rose.  Even  then  she 
loitered  in  the  room,  straightening  things  on  the 


THE  CATFISH  81 

dressing-table.  At  last  she  moved  slowly  to  the 
door.  Until  she  had  passed  out,  George  would  not 
open  his  eyes,  and  then  only  to  see  her  shadow 
upon  the  wall  of  the  passage.  By  its  trembling 
he  knew  that  she  was  weeping  silently.  He  lay 
in  an  agony  that  was  also  a  luxury  of  love.  He 
longed  to  cry  out :  "  Mother,  mother,  come 
back!"  but  the  words  would  not  come.  The 
shadow  passed  from  the  wall  to  lurk  in  his  heart 
for  the  rest  of  his  life. 


CHAPTER  V 

GEORGE  flung  himself  into  the  life  of  school 
with  all  the  ardor  of  the  neophyte.  The 
dreaded  examination  he  found  to  be  only  a  genial 
formality  which  gave  him  a  place  among  boys 
greatly  his  inferiors  in  general  intelligence  and 
knowledge,  but  so  much  better  acquainted  with 
the  rules  of  the  game  that  neither  he  nor  they 
discovered  the  former  fact  to  his  disadvantage. 
George  was  a  good  listener,  and  his  genuine  respect 
for  people  who  could  carry  off  routine  with  an  air 
made  him  popular.  The  routine  itself  he  found 
amusing.  It  was  all  too  far  away  from  reality 
as  he  felt  it  to  arouse  doubts  or  questions  in  matter 
of  detail.  He  made  many  mistakes,  but  being  al- 
ways the  first  to  laugh  at  them,  he  disarmed  more 
serious  disapproval.  Ragging  he  almost  claimed  as 
a  right;  he  would  not  have  believed  himself  to  be 
at  a  proper  school  unless  the  other  fellows  had 
plagued  nim  a  little,  and  bullying  was  not  more  than 
a  romantic  legend. 

St.   Piran's  was  near  the  mouth  of  an  estuary 
82 


THE  CATFISH  83 

that  opened  into  the  bay  of  Forth  Enys.  The 
school  was  just  too  far  from  the  sea,  and  the  life 
was  too  highly  organized,  to  permit  more  than  a 
gradual  and  fragmentary  acquaintance  with  the 
enchanted  element.  Disciplined  bathing  gave  no 
time  for  dreams  and  kept  the  water  as  bright  and 
blue  and  the  sands  as  golden  to  an  occupied  mind 
at  close  quarters  as  they  looked  from  the  dormitory 
windows.  Then  there  were  headlong  streets  in 
Forth  Enys  and  gray  moors  inland  to  be  glimpsed 
in  the  intervals  of  doing  something  with  all  your 
might.  All  the  conditions  and  surroundings  were 
so  different  from  any  that  he  knew  that  there  was 
no  roosting-place  in  them  for  familiar  associations. 
It  was  like  beginning  life  over  again  with  a  blank 
but  eager  mind. 

As  before,  however,  life  was  dominated  by  a 
sound.  It  came  from  the  sea,  and  in  character  it 
varied  from  a  deep  lowing  —  which  prompted  the 
"  suck  in  "  to  which  George  obediently  fell  a  victim 
—  of  a  cow  abandoned  on  an  island  to  a  clear  ring- 
ing note  like  the  upper  harmonics  of  a  great  bell. 
But  however  affected  by  wind  or  weather,  the 
sound  was  always  rhythmical  with  a  definite  come 
and  go  —  as  when  you  whistle  with  alternately 
outblown  and  indrawn  breath.  Actually  it  came 


84  THE  CATFISH 

from  a  bellows  buoy  on  a  reef  out  in  the  bay  by  the 
lighthouse,  but  to  George  it  became  the  voice  of  the 
whole  horizon  encircling  his  new  world.  Its 
message  to  him  was  that  of  urgency  —  translated 
in  the  key  of  his  mood  by  the  words :  "  Keep  the 
pot  boiling."  The  pace  varied  as  his  energy  in- 
creased or  flagged,  but  it  was  always  a  little  ahead 
df  his  natural  movement  as  determined  by  the  past, 
and  so  he  was  never  allowed  to  vegetate. 

At  the  time  he  did  not  consciously  compare  the 
new  sound  with  the  old,  though  his  deeper  nature 
responded  to  the  difference  between  them.  The 
difference  was  repeated  in  the  tides  of  the  estuary, 
the  rhythmical  ebb  and  return  obliterating  the 
character  of  a  river  as  he  would  have  conceived 
it.  Thus,  without  his  knowing  it,  everything  con- 
spired to  lift  him  out  of  his  own  world.  Growing 
and  flowing  were  succeeded  by  periodical  activity; 
the  dominating  sound  of  his  new  life,  though  in  a 
sense  continuous,  was  recurrent  rather  than  per- 
sistent, and  came  from  around  instead  of  from 
below;  and  since  his  mind,  eager  for  the  sense  of 
adventure,  leaped  at  "Atlantic,"  to  the  entire  for- 
getting of  "  Severn  Sea,"  the  color  of  his  days  was 
blue  instead  of  brown.  If  he  had  been  capable 
at  the  time  of  analyzing  the  difference  in  his 


THE  CATFISH  85 

general  conditions,  he  might  have  said  that  it 
represented  the  difference  between  the  clock  and  the 
barometer. 

Inspired  by  regularity  in  a  world  that  was 
altogether  new,  and  difficult  enough  to  absorb  all 
his  attention,  George  "  kept  the  pot  boiling,"  with 
benefit  to  his  progress  in  both  work  and  play. 
He  gained  rather  than  lost  by  showing  no  definite 
talent  that  coincided  with  any  official  grind  or 
game.  His  masters  approved  him  as  vaguely 
clever,  and  his  companions  as  vaguely  a  good 
sportsman.  Both  remarked  his  willingness.  His 
house-master  preserved  about  him  the  silence  which 
anticipates  a  future  credit  to  the  establishment,  but 
cautioned  his  wife  against  spoiling.  She  trusted 
that  she  knew  better  than  that,  and  at  tea  with 
the  Head's  wife,  spoke  of  Tracy  as  "  a  cheerful 
little  soul." 

The  inevitable  bout  of  homesickness  was  late, 
short  and  severe.  It  came  after  the  trying  day 
following  the  mid-term  holiday,  when  George,  be- 
ing absorbed  in  recent  memories  of  a  visit  to  a 
"  British  village "  of  cave-dwellings  up  on  the 
moor,  got  into  difficulties  with  his  class-master. 
That  night  he  dreamed  of  the  Grove,  and  his  tears 
became  the  Bourne  swelling  in  his  heart  and  bearing 


86  THE  CATFISH 

him  on  until  the  dark  gesture  of  the  tall  fir-trees 
turned  to  the  shadow  of  his  mother's  face  on  the 
wall,  forgotten  until  now,  and  he  awoke  crying, 
"Mother,  mother!"  Through  the  long  hours  he 
lay  haunted  by  dear  memories  of  Bourneside,  and 
rose  exhausted  to  a  gray,  featureless,  unfriendly  sea 
and  the  white  mocking  of  the  bar  at  the  mouth  of 
the  estuary. 

For  the  next  few  days  he  crawled  at  work  and 
play  in  a  loud  confusing  world  of  pitiless  men  and 
boys,  with  a  heart  that  seemed  swollen  to  bursting 
with  all  he  had  ever  loved.  Misery  culminated  in 
a  headache  that  made  work  impossible  and  put  him 
into  the  hands  of  women.  The  next  day  he  was 
violently  sick,  and  in  the  recovery  he  found  himself 
remorsefully  keen  to  take  hold  of  his  difficulties 
again.  It  was  as  if  he  had  finally  shed  a  self  until 
now  only  kept  in  abeyance  by  the  novelty  of  his 
surroundings  and  waiting  its  chance  to  give  him 
trouble;  and  thereafter  St.  Piran's,  with  all  that 
concerned  it  of  pleasures  or  pains,  became  his  pride, 
and  he  thought  of  Bourneside  with  affection,  it  is 
true,  but  chiefly  as  the  place  where  he  might  pres- 
ently swagger  about  St.  Piran's. 

The  holidays  found  him  the  complete  schoolboy 
—  perhaps  a  little  more  consciously  so  than  the 


THE  CATFISH  87 

schoolboy  generally  is.  He  was  the  schoolboy  by 
conviction;  glad  to  go  home,  glad  at  the  prospect 
of  coming  back,  gladdest  of  all  in  the  company 
of  grown  boys,  wearing  the  same  badge  as  he 
wore,  as  far  as  Barstow.  His  father  would  see 
them  and  recognize  them  for  his  colleagues. 

His  father  met  him  at  Barstow,  and  with  ad- 
mirable tact  remembered  not  to  kiss  him  until  the 
train  had  borne  his  colleagues  away.  His  father's 
manner  to  him  was  affectionately  respectful;  and 
George  said,  to  encourage  him,  "  I  see  you've  got 
the  same  pony." 

"  Yes,  we  haven't  changed  much,"  said  his 
father  modestly,  as  he  took  the  reins  from  the  boy 
who  had  looked  after  the  trap,  and  George  felt  by 
comparison  all  the  wonderful  changes  that  had 
taken  place  in  himself. 

For  the  first  three  miles  of  their  drive  they  were 
able  to  keep  up  their  respective  positions  of  stay-at- 
home  and  returning  hero,  because  there  was  noth- 
ing in  the  roads  to  awaken  associations,  but  when 
they  had  passed  the  railway  station  that  was  the 
Bourneside  approach  to  Barstow,  and  the  long 
white  road  with  its  heavy  elms  lay  before  them, 
George  nestled  in  close  to  his  father  and  said: 

"  It  is  nice  to  be  coming  home." 


88  THE  CATFISH 

His  father  changed  hands  with  the  reins  and 
put  his  left  arm  about  him  with  a  firm  pressure 
that  brought  back  the  mixture  of  love,  reverence 
and  fear  that  was  George's  natural  feeling  to- 
ward him. 

Secure  in  his  father's  arm,  he  was  able  to  play 
the  friendly  critic  to  each  succeeding  feature  of 
his  old  world  as  it  welcomed  him:  the  church  on 
its  far  Down,  the  Camp,  and  the  trees  that  formed 
the  upper  edge  of  the  Grove.  Even  when,  sitting 
a  little  closer  to  his  father,  he  heard  the  diapason 
of  the  Waterfall,  and  his  whole  nature  responded, 
as  roof -timbers  to  the  pedal-note  of  an  organ,  he 
was  able  to  say  to  himself: 

"  There  you  are,  Old  Growler." 

The  Waterfall  nodded  to  him  across  the  fields 
as  they  ran  down  and  up  the  gentle  dip  in  the 
road,  and  then  the  long  wall  of  the  Garden,  with 
its  turreted  angle,  reached  out  to  him,  and  he  was 
in  his  mother's  arms. 

He  found  himself  responding  to  her  with  a  free- 
dom that  delighted  him.  After  all,  there  was 
nothing  between  them.  He  could  not  see  that, 
glad  as  she  was  to  hold  him,  she  was  still  a  little 
disappointed.  His  very  demonstrativeness,  frank 
and  free  as  it  was,  proved  that  the  boy  she  held 


THE  CATFISH  89 

in  her  arms  was  not  the  boy  who  had  gone  away. 
He  only  noticed  that  as  she  pushed  back  the  hair 
from  his  forehead  and  said,  "  You've  grown,"  she 
smiled  rather  wistfully. 

The  effect  of  the  holidays  was  to  establish  a 
whole  series  of  new  relations  with  the  people  he 
loved.  He  approached  them  with  the  pull  of  old 
associations  it  is  true,  but  from  a  new  standpoint. 
He  now  recognized  in  them  qualities  that  he  had 
only  felt  before.  His  regard  for  his  mother  was 
now  mainly  protective;  he  seemed  to  realize  for 
the  first  time  that  she  was  a  small,  rather  timid 
woman,  and  that  she  was  beginning  to  look  old. 
He  found  himself  calling  her  "  little  mother." 
It  was  now  he  who  proposed  the  evening  walk  at 
the  top  end  of  the  Garden,  he  who  moved  proudly, 
while  she,  a  little  more  bent  than  he  remembered, 
hung  on  his  arm.  The  broad  hat  and  the  red  cloak 
he  claimed  as  a  right.  There  was  no  longer  any 
risk  of  embarrassment;  she  took  what  he  gave 
gratefully,  and  it  was  only  in  an  occasional  silence 
between  them  that  he  felt  the  moving  of  an  old 
curiosity. 

His  father  had  emerged  from  old  conceptions 
with  triumphant  clearness  and  solidity.  George 
now  understood,  as  he  had  only  surmised  before, 


90  THE  CATFISH 

that  his  father  was  a  remarkable  man.  Exactly 
wherein  his  remarkableness  lay  he  could  not  have 
said,  but  it  was  expressed  in  the  effect  of  a  deep 
foundation.  Compared  with  his  father,  the  much 
cleverer  masters  at  school,  and  the  neighbors, 
whom  George  was  now  able  to  regard  with  detach- 
ment, struck  him  as  jerry-built.  Sometimes  he 
thought  of  his  father  as  like  the  old  Norse  heroes. 
It  was  the  nature  of  the  soil  that  his  father  was 
rooted  in,  and  from  which  he  drew  his  nourish- 
ment, that  baffled  George.  By  this  time  he  knew 
that  it  was  not  wealth;  so  far  from  controlling  all 
the  money  in  the  world,  the  bank  was  relatively  a 
small  affair.  Nor,  seriously  and  energetically  as 
his  father  pursued  the  business  of  the  bank,  did 
George  believe  that  it  was  the  bank  that  morally 
supported  him.  Whatever  it  was,  it  enabled  him 
to  be  firm,  deliberate  and  comparatively  silent; 
other  people  might  run  about,  but  he  sat  still  and 
smiled,  not  craftily  nor  sardonically,  but  with  the 
effect  of  one  who  knows. 

As  if  George's  report  from  school  had  given  him 
the  assurance  he  needed  in  a  region  that  he  did  not 
pretend  to  understand,  his  father  began  to  hint  at 
his  purpose  regarding  him. 

"  I  hope  you  will  do  well  at  school,  my  boy," 


THE  CATFISH  91 

he  said  one  Sunday  afternoon,  as  together  they 
examined  for  wasps  the  nectarines  on  the  high 
wall  of  the  Garden.  "  Old  Walter  has  done  very 
well  for  what  he  is  to  be." 

George  would  have  liked  to  ask  his  father  what 
he  meant  him  to  be,  but  he  knew  that  a  direct 
question  would  be  useless. 

"  You  see,"  his  father  went  on,  "  different  people 
have  different  powers.  You  can  only  work  with 
your  head,  and  that  takes  longer.  We  want  men 
with  heads." 

It  was  tantalizing,  but  George  was  now  too  keen 
about  school  to  bother  much  about  his  ultimate 
destiny.  He  suspected  something  to  do  with 
politics.  He  could  not  have  said  exactly  why,  but 
though  his  father  did  not  talk  much  about  politics, 
George  felt,  somehow,  that  he  was  a  practical  part 
of  them. 

He  believed  that  his  father  was  thinking  about 
politics,  now,  as  they  walked  arm  in  arm  up  the 
Garden.  They  passed  through  the  door  into  the 
Orchard,  and,  after  looking  into  the  cowshed,  went 
to  the  low  wall  which  divided  the  Orchard  from  the 
two  fields.  From  here  they  could  see  the  Water- 
fall away  down  on  the  right,  and  the  Grove  lying 
beyond. 


92  THE  CATFISH 

His  father  leaned  on  the  wall  with  folded  arms, 
and  said: 

"  I'm  thinking  of  buying  that  field  of  Gardi- 
ner's." 

This,  except  for  a  scrap  of  orchard  where  the 
ground  rose,  was  continuous  with  the  Bourneside 
fields,  and  for  nearly  half  a  mile  covered  the  whole 
space  between  the  Barstow  road  and  the  Grove. 
George  was  interested,  and  he  said: 
"  Shall  you  buy  the  Grove,  too  ?  " 
His  father  looked  at  him  amusedly  and  said : 
"I  don't  think  so.     What  good  would  it  be?" 
George  could  only  say:  "  It's  a  jolly  place." 
"  Anyhow,"  said  his  father,  "  it's  not  settled  yet. 
Gardiner  wants  rather  a  lot." 

As  they  moved  away  and  walked  down  the 
Orchard  to  tea,  George  was  thinking  that  his  father's 
deep  foundation  must  be  in  land.  He  remembered 
scraps  of  family  history.  For  generations  in  an- 
other county  the  Tracys  had  owned  land;  it  was 
only  during  his  father's  early  manhood  that  they 
had  lost  it.  He  decided  that  when  he  was  a 
man  he,  too,  would  own  land,  and  for  the  first  time 
he  looked  at  Bourneside  with  a  possessive  eye. 
Always  the  back  of  the  house,  commanded  by  the 
higher  ground  of  the  Orchard,  struck  him  as 


THE  CATFISH  93 

pleasanter  than  the  front.  It  got  the  afternoon 
sun,  and  there  were  four  friendly  gables  with  warm 
red  roofs  between,  instead  of  the  long,  ivied,  many- 
windowed  face,  with  its  unbroken  line  of  gray  roof. 
When  he  was  a  man  he  would  make  more  of  the 
back  of  the  house. 

The  new  sense  of  possession,  that  Bourneside 
belonged  to  them,  gave  bottom  to  his  holidays  and 
enhanced  the  brisk  activities  of  school  to  which  he 
would  presently  return.  It  was  a  good  world.  Of 
his  father's  conversation,  however,  the  words  that 
stuck  in  his  mind  were:  "Old  Walter."  They 
seemed  so  true.  In  his  eighteenth  year,  Walter, 
who  had  been  rather  a  troublesome  boy,  was 
curiously  sobered.  He  seemed  to  recognize  his 
humdrum  responsibilities  and  cheerfully  to  accept 
them.  George  looked  up  to  him  more  than  ever. 
His  awed  observation  of  the  big  fellows  at  St. 
Piran's  told  him  that  Walter,  though  not  clever, 
was  made  of  better  stuff  than  most  of  them,  and  he 
often  wished  that  Walter  could  be  there.  But 
Walter  was  quite  happy  at  the  grammar  school, 
where  he  had  only  another  year  to  go.  Then  he 
was  going  into  the  bank,  and  apparently  he  wished 
no  other  fate. 

The  change  in  Amelia  was  not  less  remarkable. 


94  THE  CATFISH 

She  had  become  amazingly  cheeky.  She  was  now 
a  weekly  boarder  at  a  school  in  Cleeve  —  Miss 
Arnold  having  left  before  George  went  to  St. 
Piran's.  The  high  school  movement  was  just  be- 
ginning with  the  discovery  or  the  recognition  that 
girls  are  a  sort  of  boy,  and  Amelia  was  an  aggres- 
sive disciple.  She  and  George  spent  most  of  their 
time  in  ragging.  From  what  George  could  make 
out,  it  was  Amelia  who  was  running  Bourneside. 
At  school  she  had  come  in  contact  with  the 
daughters  of  neighbors  with  whom  the  Tracys  had 
not  previously  been  on  visiting  terms,  and  the 
social  horizon  had  extended.  The  death  of  the 
Archery  Club,  through  over-exclusiveness,  had 
given  the  opportunity  for  a  rectification  of  social 
values,  with  the  advantage  of  new  blood,  by  means 
of  tennis.  Mrs.  Tracy  was  a  member  of  the  Tennis 
Club,  though,  of  course,  she  did  not  play.  Thus, 
by  natural  evolution,  mistakes  were  being  repaired, 
with  no  reproach  to  anybody  for  neglect.  George 
could  see  that,  for  the  sake  of  her  children,  his 
mother  was  glad  of  the  better  standing.  His 
father  simply  did  not  care,  though  he  had  been 
wheedled  by  Amelia  into  the  promise  of  tennis- 
courts  at  the  nearer  end  of  the  Orchard,  the  Lawn 
not  being  big  enough.  The  trees  were  to  be  cut 


THE  CATFISH  95 

down   this  autumn.     As    for  croquet,   it   was   too 
recently  dead  for  the  dream  of  revival. 

There  was  one  change  that  was  too  big  for  all 
its  implications  to  be  taken  in  at  once.  The  Mark- 
hams  were  gone.  George  could  not  make  up  his 
mind  whether  to  be  glad  or  sorry.  Of  course  he 
missed  Eleanor  and  Rose;  but  he  doubted  if  they 
made  the  proper  atmosphere  for  a  schoolboy. 
Eleanor,  in  particular,  was  too  nearly  connected 
with  what  he  now  thought  of  as  the  world  of  child- 
hood. It  was  Eleanor  Markham  who  had  been 
responsible  for  Mary  Festing,  whom  he  sometimes 
remembered  with  irritation.  He  felt  that,  in 
schoolboy  language,  he  owed  her  one.  The  Mark- 
hams  had  been  succeeded  by  the  Mostyns,  whose 
three  children  were  of  negligible  ages,  the  eldest 
being  five.  Mr.  Mostyn  was  emphatically  a  man. 
He  smoked  the  strongest  tobacco  in  the  largest 
pipes  and  when  he  was  not  in  cassock,  wore  the 
roughest  clothes  —  knickerbockers  and  a  Norfolk 
jacket  with  the  belt  flying  wide  —  that  George 
had  ever  smelt  or  seen.  He  talked  in  a  loud  voice 
about  beer,  and  was  always  appearing  from  some- 
where unexpected  with,  "Now,  you  men!"  or 
"  Now,  you  boys !  "  George  felt  that  Mr.  Mostyn 
liked  being  a  man  as  he  liked  being  a  schoolboy. 


96  THE  CATFISH 

It  surprised  him  to  find  Mr.  Mostyn  on  shoutingly 
friendly  terms  with  his  father.  He  understood 
that  Mr.  Mostyn  greatly  admired  his  father.  The 
fact  was  natural,  but  from  what  George  could 
make  out  the  reason  appeared  to  be  that  his  father 
never  went  to  church.  He  heard  Mr.  Mostyn  say 
to  his  father :  "  We  want  more  men  like  you," 
which,  though  reasonable  in  the  abstract,  was  un- 
expected in  the  particular. 

At  their  first  meeting  Mr.  Mostyn  showed  George 
pretty  plainly  that  he  would  stand  no  nonsense. 
He  addressed  him  as,  "  Well,  young  feller ! "  and 
went  on  to  say  that  he  supposed  they  were  a 
lot  of  old  women  at  St.  Piran's.  Walter  and  he 
were  on  the  most  familiar  terms,  and  Walter  said 
that  he  was  "  no  end  of  a  chap."  George  could 
quite  believe  that.  In  church  he  did  not  think  he 
liked  Mr.  Mostyn.  The  new  vicar  was  said  to 
have  improved  the  singing,  but  he  seemed  to  have 
taken  the  thrill  out  of  the  organ  and  the  color  out 
of  the  windows  as  well.  In  the  petitions  of  the 
litany,  George  was  half  expecting  Mr.  Mostyn  to 
say:  "And  be  jolly  quick  about  it."  He  sur- 
mised that  Mr.  Mostyn  would  make  things  lively  in 
Heaven  —  probably  get  the  angels  to  play  cricket. 
Mrs.  Mostyn  was  beautifully  dressed.  She  lay  on 


THE  CATFISH  97 

the  sofa  a  good  deal,  sang  in  French,  and  called 
her  husband  "  Swipes  ".  Amelia  said  that  she  was 
artistic. 

With  so  many  new  interests,  George  was  not 
very  much  alone.  He  still  had  his  own  affairs,  but 
he  seemed  to  be  looking  at  them  from  outside  and 
above.  His  pilgrimages  to  favorite  haunts  were 
mainly  for  the  purpose  of  comparison.  The  new 
sense  of  possession  made  an  enormous  difference 
to  his  feelings.  Before,  he  had  belonged  to  the 
Bourne;  now,  in  a  sense,  the  Bourne,  or  part  of 
it,  belonged  to  him.  The  Waterfall  had  not  lost 
its  power  to  thrill  him,  but  he  could  address  it 
aloud  as  "  Old  Growler  " ;  the  Grove  still  held  a 
mystery,  but  he  already  saw  it  with  a  possessive 
eye,  as  one  might  think  of  a  family  ghost.  When 
he  went  to  the  Camp  he  still  felt  the  confidence  of 
dead  Romans  under  his  feet,  but  in  the  interval 
he  had  seen  a  British  village,  and  he  knew  now 
that  the  Camp  was  "  comparatively  modern  " ;  and 
beyond  the  shining  pathway  of  the  Severn  he  saw 
the  leaping  of  the  Atlantic. 

On  one  of  his  excursions  he  met  Tom  Burchell. 
At  the  recognition  from  afar  on  a  lonely  road,  both 
boys  began  to  walk  a  little  stiff-legged.  George 
was  prepared  to  fight  if  necessary,  but  he  had  lit- 


98  THE  CATFISH 

tie  hope  of  licking  Tom  in  cold  blood.  Tom 
looked  heavier  than  ever,  while  George,  though  he 
had  grown,  was  thinner  than  before,  and  at  the 
moment,  tired  with  walking.  But  from  a  dozen 
yards,  Tom  called  out :  "  Hullo,  Tracy !  " 

The  name  itself  implied  respect,  and  George  an- 
swered gladly:  "Hullo,  Burchell!"  They  shook 
hands,  and  Tom  turned  in  George's  direction. 
George  would  have  liked  to  say  that  he  was  sorry 
for  having  lost  his  temper  the  last  time  they  met, 
but  he  was  afraid  that  it  would  seem  like  swagger- 
ing, and  it  was  Tom  who  said : 

"  I  say,  it  served  me  right." 

"  I  was  a  silly  kid,"  said  George. 

"  No,  you  weren't,"  said  Tom ;  "  but  I  don't 
know  how  you  did  it." 

"  Nor  do  I,"  said  George  honestly. 

"  Of  course,"  said  Tom,  "  I  ought  to  have 
known  that  you  wanted  it  for  a  specimen.  I'm 
going  to  be  a  doctor." 

George  let  the  misconception  go,  and  for  the 
rest  of  the  walk  they  talked  about  what  Tom  called 
science,  which  gave  him  the  right  advantage. 
Afterward  George  found  that  Tom's  misconcep- 
tion about  the  flower  bothered  him  a  little.  Not 
because  he  wanted  to  explain,  but  because  it  re- 


THE  CATFISH  99 

minded  him  that  he  had  lost  something.  Undoubt- 
edly the  queer  feelings  excited  by  the  flower  had 
some  practical  value,  or  he  couldn't  have  licked 
Tom  in  the  strength  of  them. 


CHAPTER  VI 

IT  was  on  his  return  to  St.  Piran's  that  George 
made  the  first  real  friendship  of  his  life. 
Until  now  other  people  had  adopted  him.  Among 
his  new  housemates  was  a  little  Irish  boy,  Miles 
Darragh,  a  few  months  younger  than  himself. 
Directly  he  saw  Miles,  George  recognized  in  him 
something  that  belonged  to  his  own  world.  Miles 
was  very  pale  and  delicate-looking,  with  appre- 
hensive gray  eyes,  and  he  spoke  in  a  low  quivering 
voice.  Evidently  he  was  confused  and  frightened 
by  his  new  surroundings,  though  he  bore  himself 
with  a  curious  dignity. 

The  last,  however,  did  not  preserve  him  from 
the  usual  attentions,  and  in  the  aimless  half-hour 
after  tea  he  was  subjected  to  some  gentle  ragging. 
Leaning  against  a  desk,  with  his  hands  behind  him, 
Miles  answered  politely  the  questions  put  to  him, 
but,  as  George  recognized,  with  more  candor  than 
the  occasion  deserved.  His  father,  it  appeared, 
was  dead,  but  had  been  a  soldier.  Sympathetic, 
but  kept  from  interfering,  not  by  the  fear  of 

100 


THE  CATFISH  101 

physical  consequences,  but  by  the  disinclination  to 
give  himself  away,  George  appreciated  the  deli- 
cacy that  kept  the  boys  from  asking  Miles  any 
questions  about  his  mother.  She  might  be  dead, 
too.  George  wanted  to  tell  the  new  boy  not  to  be 
so  simple,  but,  at  the  same  time,  he  was  conscious 
of  a  queer  wish  to  see  him  humiliated.  It  was 
very  like  the  feeling  which  had  made  him  want  to 
insult  Mary  Festing. 

From  questions  about  his  home  —  though  Irish 
by  birth,  Miles  now  lived  in  Cornwall  —  the  boys 
passed  to  his  attainments.  What  did  he  know 
about  Latin? 

"  I  know  Latin,"  said  Miles  quietly. 

The  statement  made  a  sensation;  but  before  any- 
body could  think  of  a  rough  test  for  what  it  was 
worth,  the  inevitable  blockhead  rushed  at  it  with: 

"Well,  how  does  Latin  begin?" 

Only  George  laughed,  and  while  he  was  wonder- 
ing why  nobody  else  did,  the  new  boy  said  very 
gravely : 

"  Latin  begins  with  Amor." 

This  time  everybody  laughed  with  relief  at  the 
exposure  of  the  preposterous  claim,  and  somebody 
said  mockingly: 

"  And  what  does  Amor  mean?  " 


102  THE  CATFISH 

"  Love,"  said  the  new  boy  in  his  quivering  tones. 
George  felt  his  cheeks  flame,  and  that  made  him 
hostile.  It  was  as  if  the  new  boy  were  an  in- 
former. The  others  were  now  in  full  cry  for  sport, 
and  one  said: 

"Who  taught  you  Latin?" 

"  My  mother,"  breathed  the  boy. 

George  felt  that  he  hated  him,  with  the  cruel  hate 
of  jealousy.  He  recognized  all  the  confidence  he 
could  not  achieve  with  his  own  mother,  dearly  as 
he  loved  her,  and  when  the  other  boys  began  to 
mimic  their  victim  he  joined  in,  as  much  to  wound 
himself  as  to  tease  the  white-faced  child,  who  bore 
the  mocking  with  sorrowful  though  tearless  eyes 
and  trembling  lips. 

In  the  night  George  heard  Miles  crying  in  his 
bed,  and  he  covered  his  own  head  with  the  clothes 
to  shut  out  the  vision  of  his  mother's  shadow  on 
the  wall.  He  wanted  to  call  out  angrily,  "  Shut 
up! "  Why  couldn't  they  let  him  alone,  these  peo- 
ple who  anguished  his  heart?  But  when  all  was 
quiet  he  had  to  get  softly  out  of  bed  to  peer  at  the 
sharply-cut  profile  of  the  new  boy. 

For  the  next  few  days  George  watched  the  new 
boy  with  jealous  eyes.  As  far  as  possible,  he 
avoided  contact  with  him,  and  when  it  was  neces- 


THE  CATFISH  103 

sary  to  speak  he  was  curt  to  rudeness.  All  the  time 
he  knew  that  if  any  attempt  had  been  made  to 
bully  the  new  boy  he  would  have  rushed  to  his 
aid  in  fury.  Fortunately,  however,  Darragh  was 
let  alone.  His  dignified  behavior  under  ragging 
had  made  a  good  impression,  and  though  it  was 
at  once  evident  that  he  was  hopeless  at  cricket,  he 
was  a  splendid  swimmer.  His  astonishment  at  be- 
ing cautioned  against  going  out  too  far  was  too 
genuine  to  be  mistaken  for  "  side  ".  As  might  have 
been  expected,  his  unhealthy  claim  to  Latin  would 
not  bear  official  investigation;  it  was  admitted  that 
he  was  remarkably  fluent  for  his  age,  but  with 
some  general  and  not  unhumorous  remarks  upon 
the  female  tendency  to  ignore  construction  in  the 
zeal  for  language,  he  was  put  into  the  same  form 
with  George. 

The  latter  did  his  best  to  keep  down  what  he 
felt  to  be  an  unwholesome  curiosity  about  the  new 
boy,  but  it  was  no  good.  Meeting  Darragh  alone 
in  the  playing-field  with  a  book,  he  stopped  and 
said  awkwardly : 

"  I  say,  kid,  let's  be  friends." 

"  I  will  be  glad,"  said  Darragh  simply. 

"What's  that  rot?"  said  George,  indicating  the 
book. 


104  THE  CATFISH 

"  Treasure  Island/'  said  Darragh.  "  Have  you 
read  it?" 

George  had,  but  he  was  not  going  to  give  him- 
self away,  so  he  growled : 

"  Not  me.     I  hate  reading." 

"  I  expect  you've  read  too  many  books,"  said 
Darragh,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  large  gray  eyes. 
George  rolled  a  reproving  glance  upon  him  and 
said: 

"  None  of  your  cheek.  But  I  used  to  be  rather 
a  sappy  kid  when  I  was  at  home,"  he  added 
grandly. 

Darragh  asked  him  where  he  lived,  and  that 
gave  George  an  opportunity  to  confirm  for  his 
own  benefit  his  detached  regard  for  his  "  people  ". 
Them  and  the  landscape  he  sketched  with  tolerant 
phrases.  All  the  time  he  was  hoping  that  Darragh 
would  talk  about  his  mother;  but  Darragh,  though 
he  mentioned  her  name,  did  not  volunteer  any  in- 
formation about  her,  except  that  she  was  not  very 
well  off.  Darragh's  mother  lived  between  Bos- 
castle  and  Tintagel.  He  had  no  brothers  nor 
sisters,  and  except  for  an  occasional  visit  to  London 
with  his  mother,  had  never  been  away  from  home 
before. 

At    first,    George's    adoption    of    Darragh    was 


THE  CATFISH  105 

probably  a  disadvantage  rather  than  an  advantage 
to  the  latter,  since  George  was  inclined  to  trail  his 
coat  on  the  younger  boy's  account.  But  that  soon 
passed,  and  Darragh  took  his  own  place  in  the 
school.  He  was  just  too  different  from  his  com- 
panions to  irritate  them.  It  was  almost  as  if 
he  had  been  a  girl.  The  effect  of  the  friendship 
upon  George  was  curious,  and  from,  his  point  of 
view  extremely  comfortable.  What  began  as  a 
self -protecting  pose  quickly  became  a  habit. 
Finding  in  Darragh,  in  an  extravagantly  consistent 
form,  what  he  took  to  be  weaknesses  in  himself, 
he  reacted  in  the  opposite  direction  and  cultivated 
a  man-of-the-world  attitude.  On  the  other  hand, 
when  he  wanted  to  indulge  himself,  he  could  al- 
ways do  so  vicariously  by  getting  Darragh  to  talk. 
Little  by  little  he  was  externalizing  in  the  person 
of  Darragh  the  self  that  bothered  him;  it  did  not 
cease  to  develop,  but  he  was  relieved  of  its  growing- 
pains.  If  Darragh  saw  through  him,  he  was  wiser 
or  craftier  than  George's  mother,  Eleanor  Markham 
and  Mary  Festing,  and  hero-worshiped  George  to 
the  top  of  his  bent  in  the  qualities  he  affected.  At 
the  back  of  his  mind  George  knew  that  Darragh 
belonged  to  the  same  dangerous  class  as  his  mother, 
Eleanor  Markham  and  Mary  Festing,  but  he  could 


io6  THE  CATFISH 

be  rude  to  Darragh  as  he  could  not  be  to  them. 

The  first  common  interest  that  they  discovered, 
or,  rather,  that  George  confessed,  was  that  of  land- 
scape. Darragh  had  a  great  love  for  the  country 
of  his  adoption,  and  George  at  once  recognized  that 
it  was  inspired  by  the  same  sort  of  feelings  as  was 
his  own  passion  for  the  place  he  called  "  home  ". 
It  had  very  little  to  do  with  natural  advantages, 
and  still  less  with  what  is  ordinarily  called  romance. 
Indeed  it  was  the  boredom  excited  in  both  boys 
by  a  book  of  Cornish  legends  urged  upon  them  by 
Mr.  Lambert,  the  house-master,  that  first  led  them 
to  talk  about  the  subject.  As  George  said,  "  Any- 
body could  make  up  truer  stories  any  day."  What 
had  happened  was  not  nearly  so  real  as  what  might 
happen.  Though,  as  Darragh  pointed  out,  it  wasn't 
so  much  what  might  happen  as  what  things  meant: 
the  sulky  way  the  hills  at  the  back  of  Forth 
Enys  lumped  along  to  the  Land's  End;  the  sudden 
woods  of  ash-trees  in  the  valleys;  the  stealthy  turns 
of  the  road  from  Forth  Enys  to  Porthlew,  the 
magic  of  the  Mount  in  gray  weather. 

Then  there  were  all  the  ancient  monuments: 
cromlechs,  "  Merry  Maidens,"  beehive  huts,  the 
Men  Scryfa  and  the  Men-an-tol.  The  stories 
about  them,  scientific  and  popular,  were,  of  course, 


THE  CATFISH  107 

entertaining;  but  they  didn't  say  what  they  meant 
now.  What  was  old  Carn  Galva  up  to?  George 
and  Darragh  said  something  of  the  sort  to  Mr. 
Lambert  on  a  conducted  excursion  to  the  British 
village  on  the  flank  of  Castle-an-Dinas.  He  said 
that  they  had  no  imagination.  All  the  way  home 
they  annoyed  him  by  keeping  up  a  sort  of  anti- 
phon :  "  Chysauster ! "  in  a  boggy  tone  from 
George,  and  "  Carnaquidden !  "  in  a  scrambling  run 
from  Darragh.  Mr.  Lambert  told  them  not  to  be 
silly. 

With  regard  to  Cornwall,  George  was,  of  course, 
only  the  enthusiastic  amateur,  but  in  Darragh  he 
found  the  soil  in  which  to  plant  his  eagerly- 
formed  impressions.  It  was  Darragh,  too,  who 
made  clear  to  him  why  he  was  bothered  by  the 
Bourne.  Darragh  hoped  to  become  an  artist.  His 
drawings  and  paintings,  elementary  as  they  were, 
told  George  "  in  a  minute "  that  they  began  to 
say  what  Darragh  felt  about  Cornwall.  They  were 
as  different  from  George's  own  explanatory  ex- 
ercises as  they  were  from  the  tittle-tattle  about  the 
Waterfall  which  had  decided  him  not  to  become  an 
artist.  He  knew  now  that  he  was  right,  but  for 
a  different  reason  from  the  one  he  had  supposed. 
He  couldn't  say  what  he  felt  with  a  brush  or  pencil. 


io8  THE  CATFISH 

It  astonished  him  that  the  school  drawing-master 
commended  his  work  more  than  Darragh's ;  an  art- 
ist from  the  colony  in  Forth  Enys,  who  came  upon 
them  sketching,  evidently  knew  better. 

George  began  to  understand  that  one  reason  why 
places  like  the  Waterfall  and  the  Grove  bothered 
him  was  because  he  had  no  way  of  getting  out  of 
him  what  he  felt  about  them.  Darragh  seemed  to 
have  all  sorts  of  ways  of  saying  what  he  felt 
about  things.  He  was  not,  with  people  in  general, 
communicative,  but  he  was  never  embarrassed.  He 
was  able  to  say  words  like  "  mother  "  and  "  love  " 
out  loud,  with  evidently  a  full  sense  of  their  mean- 
ing, but  without  blushing.  Often  George  felt  the 
return  of  his  anger  against  Darragh  for  his  facility. 
The  anger  was  partly  caused  by  envy,  partly  by 
fear;  he  was  afraid  of  what  Darragh  might  say  next. 
There  were  days  when  he  exaggerated  his  man-of- 
the-world  attitude  to  the  point  of  brutality,  and 
outraged  himself  in  order  to  hurt  his  companion. 
Darragh  would  bear  him  in  silence,  and  then  George 
would  say  furiously: 

"  Yes,  you  think  you  understand  me." 
Darragh  did  not  make  any  such  claim.     His  ad- 
miration for  George  was  genuine,  because  it  was 
that    of   the    simple    for   the   complex    character. 


THE  CATFISH  109 

Knowing  what  he  could  do  and  what  he  wanted 
to  do,  Darragh  made  light  of  his  own  gifts,  and 
regarded  with  superstitious  veneration  the  unde- 
fined possibilities  of  his  friend.  The  effect  upon 
George  was  that  Darragh  expected  something  great 
of  him,  but  would  not  say  what  it  was. 

The  effect  was  increased  by  their  comparative 
progress  in  school.  From  the  master's  point  of 
view  Darragh  was  a  simple  proposition.  On  the 
purely  literary  side  he  was  far  in  advance  of  his 
age;  while  in  mathematics,  as  in  games,  he  was  too 
blessedly  incapable  to  be  bothered  about.  The  most 
that  could  be  hoped  of  him  in  these  activities  was 
the  minimum  to  keep  his  place  in  the  school.  The 
only  regret  was  that  his  artistic  talent  absorbed  the 
ambition  which  might  have  made  him  a  shining 
classic. 

George,  on  the  other  hand,  was  anybody's  game. 
He  seemed  to  be  able  to  do  anything,  but  not  one 
thing  better  than  another.  Since  he  was  not  yet 
far  enough  advanced  to  betray  his  natural  limita- 
tions in  any  particular  subject,  this  made  him  a 
temptation  to  rivalry  among  his  masters.  He  was 
a  dark  horse.  The  impression  he  got  was  that  his 
masters  were  "  at  him  "  rather  unfairly. 

As  yet  George  was  too  keen  about  the  life  of 


no  THE  CATFISH 

school  to  suffer  more  than  this  immediate  incon- 
venience of  his  undefined  possibilities.  There  were 
many  years  before  he  need  make  up  his  mind  what 
he  wanted  to  do.  The  effect  of  trying  to  please 
everybody  was  to  develop  his  less  native  powers  and 
to  make  him  feel  more  and  more  at  home  in  what 
he  had  been  used  to  regard  as  the  world  of  make- 
believe.  For  the  world  of  reality,  with  its  dis- 
turbing hopes  and  fears,  there  was  always  Darragh ; 
and  Darragh's  more  placid  and  complete  existence 
therein  kept  George  from  feeling  a  pretender  in  the 
other. 

The  companionship  of  Darragh  during  the  win- 
ter term  deepened  and  extended  George's  more 
conscious  love  of  nature,  without  the  misgivings  that 
come  from  old  associations.  All  his  roots  were  in 
a  different  landscape.  At  this  time  of  the  year  the 
characteristics  of  his  new  surroundings  were  at  their 
most  pronounced  and  most  enchanting.  The  hills 
deepened  in  color;  the  air  was  moist  and  full  of 
strange  odors;  and  nightly  the  bay,  visible  from 
the  dormitory  windows,  was  jeweled  with  lights  of 
the  herring  fleet  under  the  shepherding  of  the  beam 
that  flashed  in  answer  to  the  calling  of  the  buoy. 
With  greater  familiarity  the  effect  of  urgency  had 
passed,  and  the  rhythm  of  life  was  deep  and  steady 


THE  CATFISH  in 

enough  to  give  time  for  dreaming.  And  always 
there  was  Darragh,  with  the  land  in  his  heart,  to 
interpret  the  impression  of  the  moment. 

For  active  enjoyment  there  was  the  novelty  of 
football,  with  its  infinite  possibilities  to  the  begin- 
ner who  had  a  hopeless  duffer  for  contrast.  Dar- 
ragh was  not  wanting  in  pluck,  but  he  simply  could 
not  play  games.  Then  there  were  the  long  even- 
ings, with  Darragh  to  insinuate  the  congenial  book. 
George's  pose  about  "  hating  reading  "  had  not  for 
a  moment  deceived  his  younger  companion,  and 
Darragh,  with  a  wider  knowledge  of  books,  seemed 
to  know  by  instinct  what  George  would  like.  They 
did  not  always  agree  about  books,  George  being 
still  keen  about  mere  information  and  "  the  way 
things  were  done  " ;  but  they  both  liked  Wordsworth 
and  Tennyson.  George  found  in  them  a  response 
to  his  own  feelings  about  nature,  while  Darragh 
had  already  begun  to  appreciate  poetry  for  its  own 
sake. 

It  was  the  same  with  music.  Darragh  could  play 
the  piano  a  little,  and  had  for  his  age  a  wide  ac- 
quaintance with  the  works  of  the  great  composers. 
He  would  spend  hours  at  the  piano  in  the  cold  half- 
lighted  class-room,  picking  out  from  memory  frag- 
ments of  pieces  that  his  mother  played,  and  George, 


ii2  THE  CATFISH 

who  had  no  inclination  to  learn  to  play,  was  never 
tired  of  listening  to  him.  One  day  Darragh  fin- 
gered out  a  few  bars  of  music  that  was  different 
in  kind  from  any  music  that  George  had  ever  heard. 

It  seemed  not  to  have  been  made,  but  to  come  out 

\ 

of  nature,  as  if  the  hills  were  speaking.  George 
eagerly  asked  what  it  was,  and  Darragh  said,  in  a 
tone  of  awe,  "  Beethoven.''  The  name  meant  noth- 
ing to  George,  but  he  made  Darragh  play  the  pas- 
sage over  and  over  again,  and  it  haunted  him  for 
days.  Over  the  dinner-table  he  would  silently 
mouth  at  Darragh,  "  Beethoven,"  as  if  the  name 
were  a  secret  password  between  them.  In  after 
years  George  learned  that  the  haunting  passage, 
deep  down  on  the  piano,  was  the  theme  of  the  vari- 
ations in  the  Sonata  Appassionato,. 

In  spite  of  his  greater  facility  of  expression  and 
at  least  equal  intelligence,  Darragh  deferred  to 
George  in  almost  everything.  He  seemed  to  rec- 
ognize in  him  some  general  power  that  was  above 
all  talents,  and  his  attitude  sometimes  reminded 
George  of  his  own  toward  his  father. 

At  Christmas  George  went  home  full  of  Darragh. 
He  had  already  spoken  of  him  in  letters  to  his 
mother,  of  course;  but  George's  power  of  conveying 
information  on  paper  had  not  yet  developed  beyond 


THE  CATFISH  113 

the  stage  of,  "  There  is  a  new  boy  called  Miles 
Darragh.  He  is  a  nice  boy,  and  I  like  him."  Now 
he  talked  about  Darragh  in  and  out  of  season. 
Walter  and  Amelia  professed  to  be  bored,  but  their 
mother  encouraged  George  to  talk  about  his  friend. 
If  he  had  only  known,  he  was  giving  more  of 
himself  away  than  he  had  ever  done  before.  There- 
fore his  mother  smiled,  though  still  rather  wistfully, 
\vhile  she  listened.  It  is  the  common  fate  of 
mothers  to  get  their  confidences  at  second  hand. 

That  Christmas  George  learned  quite  a  lot  about 
his  father.  Gardiner's  field  had  been  bought,  and 
George  was  now  convinced  that  his  father  derived 
his  moral  support  from  land.  It  was  as  if  he  were 
making  provision  against  a  siege.  As  they  walked 
up  the  new  field,  George  felt  that  his  father  was 
looking  far  ahead  at  a  troubled  horizon  —  very 
much  as  a  Roman  sentinel  might  have  looked  from 
the  Camp  at  the  debatable  marches  of  the  Severn. 
Politics  to  George  was  still  only  a  matter  of  Blue 
and  Yellow.  He  knew  that  his  father  was  strongly 
Blue,  or  Conservative;  but  he  got  the  impression 
that  he  was  angry  with  his  own  side.  What  he 
said  about  neighboring  landowners  made  George 
think  of  Esau  and  the  mess  of  pottage.  He  did 
not  know  exactly  what  pottage  was,  but  he  knew 


ii4  THE  CATFISH 

that  his  father  was  not  a  sneak,  like  Jacob.  George 
believed  that  his  father  did  not  want  land  for  him- 
self, but  to  take  care  of  it.  He  seemed  to  recognize 
some  duty  to  the  land  that  other  people  did  not, 
though  he  only  talked  to  George  about  the  rotation 
of  crops. 

For  the  first  week  or  two  after  he  got  back  to 
St.  Piran's  George  was  a  little  worried  about  not 
knowing  what  he  was  going  to  be.  He  thought 
that  perhaps  he  ought  to  hurry  up,  in  case  his  father 
wanted  him,  and  for  a  time  the  calling  of  the  buoy 
was  urgent.  In  his  dreams  it  got  mixed  up  with 
the  voice  of  his  father.  But  as  the  regular  interests 
of  school  got  hold  of  him  again  the  mood  passed, 
and  then  there  was  a  new  excitement  to  look  for- 
ward to. 

Mrs.  Darragh  wanted  him  to  spend  the  Easter 
holidays  with  Miles.  George  wrote  to  his  mother 
for  permission.  She  gave  it  willingly,  but  one  sen- 
tence in  her  letter  puzzled  him  a  little:  "I  like 
you  to  make  friends,  because  then  I  know  that  you 
are  happy."  George  would  have  said  that  you  made 
friends  in  order  to  become  happy,  but  he  was  in 
no  mood  for  metaphysics,  and  then  it  became  a 
matter  of  counting  the  days. 


THE  CATFISH  115 

It  was  not  until  a  few  weeks  before  Easter  that 
George  thought  of  asking  Darragh: 

"Will  anybody  be  there?" 

"  I  expect  Mary  Festing  will  be  there,"  said  Dar- 
ragh. 

The  name  sounded  so  natural  on  his  lips  that 
for  a  moment  George  forgot  to  be  astonished. 
Then  he  felt  disturbed.  He  hoped  that  Mary  Fest- 
ing would  not  have  told  Mrs.  Darragh  about  the 
row  in  the  nursery  at  Bourneside.  It  occurred  to 
him  that  perhaps  Mrs.  Darragh  might  have  written 
to  his  mother  and  said  that  Mary  Festing  would  be 
there.  He  suspected  a  trap,  and  said  rudely: 

"  Bother  Mary  Festing!  " 

"  She's  not  like  other  girls,"  said  Darragh  mildly. 

"  No,  that's  the  worst  of  it,"  said  George  gloom- 
ily, and  then  Darragh  stared  at  him  and  said: 

"  Why,  do  you  know  Mary  Festing?  " 

George  felt  himself  beginning  to  blush,  but  he 
said  carelessly: 

"  Oh,  she  stopped  with  some  people  we  know. 
I  thought  her  "  -  he  searched  for  a  word  sufficiently 
remote  from  his  feelings  —  "  stuck  up." 

Darragh  began  to  laugh. 

"  I'll  tell  her  that,"  he  said. 


u6  THE  CATFISH 

"  If  you  do  I'll  punch  your  head,"  said  George 
furiously,  and  then  added :  "  But  I  don't  care." 

Darragh  told  him  not  to  get  shirty  about  a  girl. 

"  She's  not  at  all  a  bad  sort,  really,"  he  said, 
"and,  anyhow,  she'll  be  with  my  mother  most  of 
the  time." 

George  remembered  his  manners  and  said  no 
more,  but  he  was  half  sorry  that  he  had  promised 
to  go.  Exactly  what  his  grievance  against  Mary 
Festing  was  he  could  not  have  said.  It  was  as  if 
she  made  some  sort  of  claim  upon  him. 

"  Anyhow,"  he  thought,  "  I'll  soon  show  her  that 
I've  grown  up,"  and  for  the  rest  of  the  term  he 
remembered  to  be  a  man  of  the  world  with  all  his 
might. 

But  when  breaking-up  day  actually  came,  Mary 
Festing  was  only  an  infinitesimal  part  of  the  minor 
apprehensions  which,  mingling  with  George's  de- 
light at  the  prospect  of  sharing  his  holidays  with 
Darragh  in  Cornwall,  reduced  him  to  his  proper 
and  attractive  self  as  a  rather  bashful  guest.  The 
journey  up  through  Cornwall,  the  country  growing 
greener  as  they  traveled  eastward,  as  if  they  were 
meeting  the  spring,  with  Darragh  to  explain  inci- 
dents by  the  way,  the  Druid-haunted  hill  of  Carn 
Brea,  the  Cathedral  growing  up  in  hollow  Truro, 


THE  CATFISH  117 

and  the  unexpected  sea  on  the  right,  between  St. 
Austell  and  Par,  was  the  very  best  preparation; 
and  by  the  time  they  reached  Camelford,  George 
was  nearer  to  his  own  world  than  he  had  been  for 
some  time. 

Consequently  he  found  himself  shaking  hands 
with  Mrs.  Darragh  and  Mary  Festing  on  the  plat- 
form at  Camelford,  without  any  settled  plan  of 
behavior.  Before  he  remembered  to  be  on  guard, 
he  found  it  wasn't  necessary.  He  had  never  been 
so  taken  for  granted ;  never  so  easily  come  home. 
Mrs.  Darragh  was  just  what  he  expected:  tall,  slen- 
der and  gray-haired,  with  Miles'  clear-cut  features 
and  low  quivering  voice.  He  had  never  met  any- 
body so  entirely  without  curiosity.  Talking  to  her 
was  like  resuming  a  conversation  begun  in  a  dream. 
He  would  have  known  Mary  by  her  eyes.  She  was 
now  a  lanky  girl  of  about  fifteen.  George  doubted 
if  she  really  remembered  him,  though  she  said, 
"  Oh,  yes,"  when  Mrs.  Darragh  said,  "  You  know 
George,  of  course." 

During  the  two-mile  drive  in  a  little  wagonette, 
or  "  Jersey  car,"  on  a  high  road,  over  flat  feature- 
less country,  with  a  gray  wall  of  sea  in  front  and 
Rough  Tor  and  Brown  Willy  behind,  Miles  and 
Mary  ragged  in  the  healthiest  manner,  while  Mrs. 


n8  THE  CATFISH 

Darragh  talked  to  George  about  King  Arthur's 
Castle.  He  noticed  that  Mary  had  a  trick  of  screw- 
ing up  her  eyes  when  she  laughed. 

Presently  they  turned  aside,  and  with  a  groaning 
of  brakes,  descended  a  hill  into  a  wooded  valley 
with  a  hidden  stream.  Directly  he  heard  the 
stream  George  knew  that  he  was  going  to  be  happy. 
Compared  with  the  Bourne,  it  was  like  a  person 
without  a  history;  capricious,  maybe,  but  innocent 
of  any  deeper  meaning.  When  he  saw  the  stream 
it  was  clear  to  the  bed,  with  mock  pools  and  glanc- 
ing runs. 

At  a  little  bridge  they  got  down  from  the  Jersey 
car  and  carried  their  bags  up  to  a  small  gray  house 
looking  down  the  rocky  valley  that  framed  a  tri- 
angle of  sea.  To  George  it  was  like  a  house  in 
a  fairy  tale;  invented,  and  so,  for  all  its  wood  and 
stream  and  vision  of  sea,  a  comment  upon,  rather 
than,  like  Bourneside,  a  genuine  product  of  the 
soil.  It  was  the  very  home  of  "  Let's  pretend." 

Not  that  he  found  himself  in  an  atmosphere  of 
make-believe.  On  the  contrary,  he  had  never  been 
among  people  who  made  so  little  distinction  be- 
tween what  one  felt  and  what  one  said.  Over  sup- 
per they  talked  about  books  and  music,  and  whether 
primroses  were  friendlier  than  wood-anemones,  as 


THE  CATFISH  119 

if  they  were  the  really  important  things,  while  ques- 
tions of  what  to  wear,  and  the  politics  of  school, 
were  dismissed  with  a  laughing  word.  The  maid 
who  waited  upon  them  took  part  in  the  conversation, 
and  Mrs.  Darragh  seemed  the  youngest  there. 
George  had  to  assure  himself  that  though  he  could 
talk  more  easily  to  Mrs.  Darragh,  he  loved  his 
mother  best. 

What  made  it  all  the  more  easy  was  that,  while 
his  new  friends  took  him  for  granted  as  belonging 
to  their  world,  they  paid  him  just  that  deference 
due  to  the  completer  schoolboy  than  Darragh.  Even 
if  he  had  remembered  to  talk  like  a  man  of  the 
world  it  would  not  have  been  necessary.  He  was 
taken  for  granted  in  that  character  as  much  as  any 
other. 

Throughout  the  holidays,  George  was  kept. on 
the  best  of  terms  with  himself.  It  was  almost  as 
if  he  were  the  man  in  the  house.  Whatever  spe- 
cial efforts  were  made  to  entertain  him  were  from 
that  point  of  view  —  to  provide  him  with  rather 
more  active  amusements  than  the  tastes  of  the  house- 
hold naturally  inclined  to.  Darragh  knew  a  few 
boys  in  Tintagel  and  Boscastle  who  were  keen  about 
cricket  and  fishing,  and  young  enough  to  appreciate 
George's  more  professional  training,  at  any  rate  in 


120  THE  CATFISH 

the  former.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  was 
regarded  as  a  leader  in  athletic  sports. 

On  the  whole,  however,  he  preferred  the  after- 
noons when  the  Darraghs,  Mary  and  he  just  "  oxed 
about  " ;  climbing  Brown  Willy  and  Rough  Tor,  ex- 
ploring the  coast,  or  playing  at  Malory  among  the 
ruins  of  King  Arthur's  Castle.  At  the  bottom  of  his 
heart  he  knew  that  he  did  not  really  care  about 
cricket  and  fishing,  and  that  his  prowess  therein 
"would  not  have  stood  the  test  of  his  peers.  It  was 
not  that  he  wanted  to  show  off  in  playing  up  to 
the  Darraghs'  idea  of  him.  If  he  had  been  capable 
of  analyzing  his  feelings,  he  would  have  known  that, 
well  as  he  got  on  with  Mary  Festing,  he  still  felt 
the  necessity  of  impressing  upon  her  that  he  was 
no  longer  a  sappy  kid.  That  it  was  necessary 
was  proved  by  her  trying  to  conceal  the  fact  that 
she  was  a  better  swimmer  than  he.  Not  that  she 
gave  any  sign  of  remembering  the  incident  in  the 
nursery,  but  it  was  better  to  be  on  the  safe  side. 

Occasionally  Mary  said  things  that  seemed  to  as- 
sume too  close  an  acquaintance  with  his  private 
motives.  When  he  killed  his  first  trout,  while  the 
others  applauded,  Mary  looked  at  him  instead  of 
it  and  said:  "You  know  you  hate  it."  He  un- 
derstood her  to  mean  the  killing,  and  thereafter, 


THE  CATFISH  121 

though  he  did  hate  the  killing,  Mary's  disapproval 
of  trout-fishing  became  the  real  reason  for  pursuing 
it.  Mary  would  not  even  eat  the  trout  he  caught, 
and  the  arguments  between  her  and  Mrs.  Darragh, 
.who  made  no  pretense  of  reconciling  her  appetite 
.with  her  principles,  over  the  breakfast-table  became 
one  of  their  jokes.  Mrs.  Darragh  would  say 
gravely : 

"  You'll  riot  be  caring  for  bacon,  Mary  ?  " 
And   Mary   would  answer,   with   perfect   good- 
humor  : 

"Yes,  please;  a  lot.     I  never  loved  that  pig." 
At  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  George  knew  that 
Mary  was  really  the  more  consistent  of  the  two, 
though  he  couldn't  have  worked  it  out. 

Mary  interested  him  against  his  will.  She  was 
full  of  fun  in  a  sleepy  sort  of  way,  though  generally 
grave  in  her  manner.  At  this  distance  of  time  her 
outburst  of  temper  seemed  incredible.  Even  when 
she  argued  she  spoke  quietly  and  in  very  few  words. 
Often  when  other  people  argued  she  said  nothing, 
but  screwed  up  her  eyes  instead.  George  could 
never  quite  believe  that  she  was  not  really  older 
and  wiser  than  Mrs.  Darragh.  She  seemed  to  have 
made  up  her  mind  about  everything,  though  she 
seldom  volunteered  an  opinion.  He  understood 


122  THE  CATFISH 

that  her  parents,  who  had  been  friends  of  Mrs. 
Darragh  in  India,  now  lived  in  London,  where 
Mary  went  to  a  day-school.  It  was  not  merely  her 
presence  here  for  the  holidays  that  made  him  sus- 
pect that  she  did  not  get  on  very  well  with  her 
parents,  though  she  seemed  happy  enough.  Once 
or  twice  she  spoke  of  the  Markhams,  who  had  set- 
tled near  London.  George  wanted  to  ask  her  about 
the  Markhams,  but  decided  that  it  was  better  to 
let  well  alone. 

His  uncomfortable  memories  of  the  nursery  epi- 
sode did  not  prevent  his  whole-heartedly  joining 
in  made-up  games  now.  But  that  was  different; 
they  were  all,  even  Mrs.  Darragh,  in  the  same  boat ; 
there  was  no  personal  association  between  him  and 
Mary.  Besides,  he  didn't  invent  the  Round  Table, 
and  the  neighborhood  of  the  Castle  was  irresistible. 
It  was  true  that  all  the  authorities  threw  doubts 
on  the  identity  of  the  place,  but,  as  George  said  to 
Mrs.  Darragh,  "  It  feels  like  it."  She  laughed  and 
said,  "  Stick  to  that  and  you'll  come  out  all  right." 
He  did  not  understand  what  she  meant,  and  it  was 
one  of  the  things  that  made  him  believe  that,  for  all 
her  childishness,  Mrs.  Darragh  was  wiser  than  she 
let  on  to  be. 

Their  games  in  the  Castle,  though  they  did  not 


THE  CATFISH  123 

cause  him  any  serious  embarrassment,  reminded 
him  of  the  necessity  for  keeping  Mary  at  a  distance. 
She  always  wanted  him  to  be  Arthur.  Not  that 
she  wanted  to  be  Guinevere;  on  the  contrary,  she 
called  Guinevere  a  treacherous  pig,  and  pushed  the 
part  on  to  Mrs.  Darragh.  Her  notion  of  a  heroine 
was,  as  George  recognized,  out  of  perversity,  Vivien, 
or,  in  more  sincere  moments,  Iseult,  "  because  she 
really  couldn't  help  it."  George  asked  why  he  must 
be  Arthur.  "  I  dunno,"  said  Mary,  screwing  up 
her  eyes,  and  biting  a  blade  of  grass,  "  you're  like 
him,  somehow." 

George  declared  that  Arthur  was  a  softy.  He 
would  like  to  be  Lancelot,  and  Mrs.  Darragh  said: 
"  Sure  and  he  shall,  Mary,  if  I  have  a  voice  in  the 
matter."  At  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  George  knew 
that  he  really  wanted  to  be  Arthur,  softy  though 
he  undoubtedly  was.  Lancelot,  with  all  his  merits, 
was  a  bit  of  a  swaggerer.  But  George  was  not 
going  to  let  Mary  see  that  he  wanted  to  be  Arthur, 
and  he  threw  himself  into  the  part  of  Lancelot, 
climbing  to  the  most  dangerous  places,  baring  his 
battle-writhen  arms,  and  groaning  in  remorseful 
pain,  with  all  the  more  conviction  because  he  knew 
that  Mary  despised  the  character. 

As   for  Miles,  he  was  content  to  be  anybody: 


124  THE  CATFISH 

the  "  moral  child  without  the  craft  to  rule,"  or 
Galahad,  or  even  Percival ;  though  Merlin's  was  the 
part  he  really  preferred,  because  then  he  and  Mary, 
as  Vivien,  could  sharpen  their  wits  at  the  expense 
of  the  others. 

All  the  time  George  knew  that  their  games  were 
only  a  playful  comment  upon  the  real  inspiration 
of  the  place,  and  that  the  others  had  the  same  feel- 
ing. The  Path  Perilous  that  joined  the  Head  to 
the  mainland,  with  Merlin's  cave  below,  and  the 
mock  ruins  with  their  postern  were  too  good  to 
be  wasted ;  but  real  romance  began  when  you  came 
out  upon  the  thrift-flushed  plateau  of  the  Head, 
where  long  grass  quivered  about  the  foundations  of 
a  little  chapel  with  a  broken  altar. 

Here  they  instinctively  dropped  their  bantering 
and  talked  about  real  things.  George  generally 
found  himself  with  Mrs.  Darragh,  and  because  she 
was  not  inquisitive,  he  gave  her  more  of  his  con- 
fidence than  he  knew.  She  was  greatly  interested 
in  his  maps  and  plans.  Evidently  Miles  had  spoken 
about  them,  which  struck  George  as  rather  sur- 
prising, considering  that  Miles  was  an  artist.  He 
himself  could  not  say  what  he  "  meant  "  by  his 
maps  and  plans ;  he  only  knew  that  he  had  to  make 
them. 


THE  CATFISH  125 

One  day  Mrs.  Darragh  asked  him  if  he  ever 
wanted  to  write  stories.  He  said  that  he  did  not, 
and  tried  to  explain  why. 

"  It  seems  so  silly  to  make  things  up,  when  it  is 
all  there,  if  you  could  only  get  at  it." 

His  confidence  in  Mrs.  Darragh  was  not  quite 
easy  enough  to  let  him  tell  her  about  the  Bourne 
and  the  Grove,  but  she  seemed  to  understand  what 
he  meant. 

:<  You  mean  in  the  feel  of  the  place?  "  she  said, 
artfully  using  his  own  expression. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  and  went  on  to  say  that  he 
supposed  the  people  who  were  able  to  write  stories 
didn't  notice  the  feel  of  places.  They  could  make 
anything  happen  to  anybody,  anywhere.  Though 
very  often  when  he  was  reading  a  story,  he  could 
not  help  thinking  that  the  real  story  was  under- 
neath, though  mucked  up  by  what  was  written  over. 
Like  one  of  those  old  —  what  did  they  call  them? 

"  Palimpsests  ?  "  said  Mrs.  Darragh. 

Yes,  that  was  the  word.  Mrs.  Darragh  thought 
for  a  moment  and  then  said: 

"  Some  people  can  only  live  their  stories." 

That  struck  him  as  remarkably  true.  All  at  once 
he  thought  of  quite  a  lot  of  people  who  seemed 
to  be  living  their  stories.  His  father,  for  example, 


126  THE  CATFISH 

about  politics  and  the  land;  and  his  mother,  when 
she  walked  at  the  top  end  of  the  Garden,  with  a 
proud  head,  smiling. 

"  It  doesn't  matter,"  said  Mrs.  Darragh,  "  so 
long  as  it  is  their  own  story  —  the  one  underneath." 

He  was  afraid  that  she  was  getting  at  him,  but 
she  went  on: 

"  Mary  is  going  to  be  a  writer ;  but  she  writes 
poetry." 

For  the  first  time  his  feelings  with  regard  to 
Mary  Festing  were  tinged  with  something  like  jeal- 
ousy—  not  of  Mary,  but  of  Miles.  He  could  say 
what  he  felt  in  drawing  and  painting;  Mary  in 
poetry.  They  were  probably  doing  it  now  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Head.  How  easy  it  must  be  for 
them  to  get  on  together.  It  was  not  that  he  liked 
Mary  particularly,  or  wanted  Mary  to  like  him; 
but  it  was  tiresome  always  to  be  bluffing  with  her. 

That  feeling  of  jealousy,  or  rather,  envy,  was 
the  little  drop  of  bitter  at  the  end  of  his  holidays. 
Easily  as  he  was  taken  for  granted  by  his  com- 
panions, he  felt  a  difference  between  himself  and 
them.  If  the  word  had  been  in  his  vocabulary,  he 
would  have  said  that,  compared  with  them,  he  was 
inarticulate. 

The  only   time   when   he   forgot   all   about   the 


THE  CATFISH  127 

difference  was  when  Mrs.  Darragh  played  in  the 
evening.  Then  all  the  barriers  were  swept  away, 
and  he  felt  as  if  the  music  were  speaking  for  him. 
Particularly  when  Mrs.  Darragh  played  Beethoven. 
He  described  it  to  himself  as  the  music  that  was 
not  made  up,  that  came  out  of  the  ground.  Some- 
times when  Mrs.  Darragh  played  Beethoven  he 
would  catch  Mary  looking  at  him  out  of  her  narrow 
eyes.  Then  he  always  had  to  say  something  silly 
to  put  her  off.  He  still  felt  that  he  owed  Mary 
Festing  one,  and  he  knew  that  he  would  have  to 
have  it  out  with  her  some  day;  though  what  about 
he  could  not  have  said. 


CHAPTER  VII 

FOR  the  next  year  or  so  George's  life  at  St. 
Piran's  was  happy  and  uneventful.  He  was 
popular  with  his  fellows,  he  got  his  removes  auto- 
matically, and  his  reports  continued  to  be  encour- 
aging. His  friendship  with  Darragh  persisted, 
growing  firmer  as  the  differences  between  the  two 
boys  were  more  clearly  exposed.  They  could  now 
quarrel  and  make  it  up  again  with  a  tacit  allowance 
for  each  other's  wrong-headed  point  of  view. 
Darragh  spent  a  week  of  the  Christmas  holidays 
at  Bourneside,  where  the  abject  regard  of  the 
household  for  the  artistic  temperament  gave  George 
all  the  advantages  of  a  showman;  and  George  paid 
a  summer  visit  to  the  Darraghs,  where  the  absence 
of  Mary  Festing  was  both  a  relief  and  a  slight 
disappointment  —  which  he  explained  to  himself 
by  thinking  of  all  the  clever  things  he  might  have 
said  and  done  to  correct  her  mistaken  idea  of  him. 
Affairs  at  Bourneside  seemed  to  be  flourishing. 
Mr.  Tracy  had  been  asked  to  become  a  magistrate, 
but  had  declined  the  honor;  Walter  was  now  in 

128 


THE  CATFISH  129 

the  bank,  and  Amelia  had  been  taken  to  tea  with 
the  duchess. 

It  was  on  the  approach  of  his  fifteenth  birthday 
that  George  began  to  be  troubled.  For  some  rea- 
son or  other,  the  memories  of  his  childhood  had 
waked  up  again  and  were  stalking  him.  It  was 
as  if  the  Bourne  had  found  its  way  at  last  into  the 
Atlantic,  and  so  into  his  heart  again.  Below  the 
calling  of  the  buoy  he  heard  the  thunder  of  the 
Waterfall;  the  dark  tops  of  the  fir-trees  in  the 
Grove  made  notes  of  interrogation  upon  the  sky, 
and  he  was  haunted  by  the  shadow  of  his  mother's 
face  on  the  wall.  He  had  strange  impulses  to  write 
to  his  mother  and  tell  her  that  he  was  an  unworthy 
son;  but  when  he  sat  down  to  write  he  did  not 
know  how  to  begin. 

To  complicate  matters,  he  was  being  prepared 
for  confirmation.  With  an  acute  sense  of  double 
personality,  he  felt  that  it  was  imperative  that  he 
should  choose  now  between  one  and  the  other. 
Perhaps  the  sound  of  the  Waterfall  was  the  voice 
of  God,  and  if  he  chose  rightly  the  dark  tops  of 
the  fir-trees  would  make  the  gesture  of  benediction. 

But  when  he  tried  to  choose  there  were  appalling 
difficulties.  If  he  succumbed  to  the  calling  of  his 
old  world  and  became  as  a  little  child  again,  he 


130  THE  CATFISH 

would  have  to  renounce  his  father's  hopes  for  his 
future.  It  was  incredible  that  they  could  be  wrong 
in  themselves.  The  fault  was  his  in  pretending  to 
be  cleverer  than  he  was.  It  was  not  as  if  he  had 
not  been  warned.  He  remembered  Eleanor  Mark- 
ham's  dissatisfaction  at  the  idea  of  his  going  away 
to  school;  her  "Be  yourself,  my  dear  boy";  his 
mother's  remark  about  sticking  up  for  his  ideals; 
Mrs.  Darragh's  about  living  one's  own  story;  and 
even  Mary  Festing's  narrow  glance  at  him  when 
his  heart  was  opened  by  music, —  all  came  back  to 
him  with  prophetic  meaning.  Yet  he  could  not 
bring  himself  to  write:  "Father,  I  have  sinned." 
And  when  he  tried  to  put  his  difficulties  before  the 
Head,  who  was  preparing  him  for  confirmation,  he 
was  told  that  they  were  natural  at  his  age,  and 
would  probably  disappear  at  his  first  communion. 

"  I  may  say  that  I  am  very  well  pleased  with 
what  I  hear  of  your  work,  Tracy,"  said  the  Head, 
with  benign  aloofness. 

George  felt  that  they  were  at  cross-purposes,  but 
he  did  not  like  to  set  up  his  opinion  against  the 
Head's,  and  he  went  home  silently  hoping  for  the 
best. 

He  was  to  make  his  first  communion  at  Easter. 
His  preoccupied  manner  was  naturally  put  down 


THE  CATFISH  131 

to  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion,  and  everybody, 
even  his  father,  was  particularly  kind  to  him. 
George  would  not  presume  to  judge  his  father,  but 
he  could  not  help  wondering  if  his  own  troubles 
were  not  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  his  parents 
were  divided  about  religion.  He  had  never  heard 
them  quarrel,  or  even  argue,  about  the  subject,  but 
the  division  was  there.  As  he  walked  with  his 
mother  in  the  early  morning  along  the  road  beside 
the  Bourne,  below  the  hanging  wood  where,  over 
dead  Romans,  the  dawn  sang,  "  He  is  risen ! " 
through  the  fir-trees,  George  humbly  prayed  that, 
even  as  the  noble  dead  were  absolved  by  that  har- 
mony, so  in  time  his  father  might  be  brought  to 
the  altar. 

When  the  communion  drew  near,  and  he  knelt 
between  his  mother  and  Amelia  among  primroses 
at  the  chancel  rails,  George  derived  peculiar  com- 
fort from  the  masculinity  of  Mr.  Mostyn.  His 
large  boots,  peeping  from  under  his  alb,  were  an 
assurance  that  there  was  no  essential  incompati- 
bility between  the  world  of  reality  and  the  world 
of  affairs.  Then,  too,  Tom  Burchell  was  the 
server.  George  tried  not  to  notice  these  facts,  but 
they  entered  into  the  hope  that  the  union,  so  often 
hinted  in  this  place,  between  the  two  sides  of  his 


I32  THE  CATFISH 

nature  might  be  consummated  by  the  act  of  com- 
munion. 

During  the  interval  after  receiving  the  wafer, 
his  faculties,  hypnotized  by  the  gesture  and  the 
murmured  words  of  the  priest,  were  in  abeyance; 
and  he  knelt  with  closed  eyes,  hardly  daring  to 
breathe.  But  when  he  felt  between  his  lips  the 
thin  rim  of  the  chalice,  and  then  his  tongue  re- 
sponded to  the  pungent  flavor  of  the  wine,  he  was 
aware  of  a  phenomenon  that  he  hoped  was  not 
profane  in  its  associations.  As  a  child  he  had 
been  shown  a  simple  experiment  in  galvanism.  You 
placed  a  pointed  piece  of  zinc  between  the  upper 
teeth  and  lip,  and  a  penny  on  the  tongue,  and,  at 
the  moment  of  contact  between  the  two  metals, 
whether  the  eyes  were  open  or  closed,  there  was 
a  faint  flash,  felt  rather  than  seen,  and  a  sharp 
saline  taste.  So  now,  at  the  moment  of  com- 
munion, there  was  a  faint  flash  before  his  closed 
eyes,  and  he  saw  God. 

The  miracle  had  happened,  and  George  returned 
to  his  place  with  uplifted  heart.  He  was  one  with 
the  whole  creation,  and  he  understood  now  that 
his  doubts  and  fears  proceeded  from  the  weakness 
of  his  faith.  Always  ready  to  believe  in  the  su- 
periority of  other  people,  he  now  felt  that  what 


THE  CATFISH  133 

he  had  put  down  to  complacency  on  their  part 
was  in  reality  due  to  knowledge.  He  thought  with 
humble  reverence  of  the  wise  Head,  and  when  Mr. 
Mostyn  and  Tom  Burchell  caught  up  his  party  as 
they  moved  along  the  high  path  above  the  vicarage 
garden,  and  Mr.  Mostyn  began  to  tease  Amelia 
about  her  long  legs,  while  Tom  asked  him  what 
he  had  been  doing  at  football,  he  admired  their 
freedom.  Coming  from  that  mystery,  on  that 
morning  of  all  the  year,  they  could  talk  lightly,  be- 
cause they  were  at  ease  in  the  courts  of  Zion. 

The  mood  of  exalted  humility  persisted  through- 
out the  holidays.  He  felt  like  Galahad,  whose 
strength  was  as  the  strength  of  ten,  because  his 
heart  was  pure.  The  world,  that  he  had  found 
disturbing,  was  now  become  the  garment  of  God. 
He  heard  Him  in  the  Waterfall,  and  when  he 
walked  in  the  Grove  the  dark  tops  of  the  fir-trees 
made  the  gesture  of  benediction  upon  the  sky.  It 
was  no  longer  necessary  for  him  to  choose  between 
the  two  sides  of  his  nature;  he  had  found  the  larger 
synthesis  in  the  love  of  God. 

To  put  the  finishing  touch  to  his  happiness,  his 
father  now  began  to  talk  to  him  explicitly  about 
his  future.  At  least  explicitly  as  far  as  to  make 
George  understand  that  his  was  to  be  what  in  the 


134  THE  CATFISH 

slang  of  the  stage  is  called  a  "  thinking  part."  The 
immediate  objective  was  to  be  the  bar.  Not,  as 
Mr.  Tracy  was  careful  to  explain,  for  the  more 
practical  purposes  of  a  profession,  but  as  a  clearing- 
house for  further  advancement.  George  had  the 
haziest  notions  about  what  one  did  at  the  bar,  but 
he  thought  of  it  as  a  sort  of  pen  or  enclosure — > 
something  between  the  agricultural  show  and  the 
left-luggage  office  at  Barstow  station  —  where  be- 
wigged  and  brilliant  young  men  waited  their  turn 
to  be  called  as  judges,  cabinet  ministers,  ambas- 
sadors, or  colonial  governors. 

"  But  everything  depends  on  your  doing  well  at 
St.  Piran's  and  Oxford,"  said  his  father.  "  As  you 
know,  my  own  education  was  neglected,  and  I  don't 
want  you  to  be  handicapped  in  the  same  way.  I 
have  no  particular  desire  for  you  to  go  to  the 
university  merely  for  the  sake  of  going  there  —  if 
you  understand  what  I  mean.  I  should  like  you 
to  go  up  with  a  scholarship  —  not  so  much  for 
the  sake  of  saving  money  as  to  give  you  a  good 
position  —  and  I  gather  from  the  Headmaster  that 
this  is  well  within  your  powers." 

George  said  that  he  would  work  hard  to  gain  a 
scholarship. 

"  I  am  sure  you  will,"  said  his  father.     "  I  don't 


THE  CATFISH  135 

know  much  about  these  matters,  but  it  seems  to 
me  that  the  whole  thing  is  summed  up  in  the  word 
'  distinction.'  Unless  a  university  degree  really 
carries  distinction  — '  Honors,'  I  think  they  call  it 
-  it  is  nothing  more  than  a  sort  of  social  certifi- 
cate. It  is  difficult  to  explain  exactly  what  I  mean," 
he  went  on  rather  pathetically,  "  but  personally  I 
would  rather  that  a  young  man  stood  upon  his  own 
merits  than  upon  a  qualification  that  means  noth- 
ing more  than  so  many  years  at  a  seat  of  learning. 
As  for  the  moral  discipline,  gentlemen  ought  to  be 
made  at  home." 

George  was  very  much  more  interested  when  his 
father  talked  about  general  ideas  than  when  he 
discussed  the  details  of  education.  Young  as  he 
was,  he  felt  that  his  father's  ideas  were  sounder 
than  his  knowledge,  and  that  they  were  more  and 
more  worth  listening  to  as  the  subject  grew  wider 
and  more  difficult. 

"  From  what  I  can  make  out,"  Mr.  Tracy  went 
on,  "  we  shall  want  all  the  good  men  we  can  get. 
There  are  changes  coming  all  round.  I  see  it  in 
business,  and  I  see  it  —  here,"  he  indicated  the  land- 
scape generally,  for  they  were  walking  in  the  Or- 
chard. "  It  is  foolish  to  sit  down  and  grumble. 
There's  a  new  race,  very  sharp  and  able,  but  with- 


136  THE  CATFISH 

out  principles  or  tradition.  And  the  people  with 
principles  and  tradition  have  become  frivolous. 
Or  they  scold  at  the  newcomers  like  a  lot  of  old 
women.  What  we  want  to  do  is  to  sit  tight  and 
say  nothing.  That  is  to  say,  most  of  us,  leaving 
a  few  picked  men  to  skirmish  in  front.  There's 
a  division  of  labor,  you  see.  People  like  old  Walter 
and  myself  are  not  much  good  with  our  heads, 
except  for  business,  but  we  can  hold  the  fort.  And 
we  can  supply  the  ammunition.  However,"  he 
said,  with  a  laugh,  as  he  tucked  George's  arm  into 
his,  "  I'm  talking  too  much  ahead.  But  I  do  want 
you  to  feel,  my  boy,"  he  added  shyly,  "  that  every 
one  of  us  owes  a  duty  to  his  country." 

It  was  all  tremendously  exciting  to  George, 
though  he  could  not  help  feeling  that  the  part 
which  most  concerned  himself,  about  skirmishing 
in  front,  was  rather  vague.  It  was  true  that  he 
preferred  playing  forward  to  back  at  football,  but 
then  the  ball  was  a  definite  object  to  go  for.  But 
holding  the  fort  conveyed  a  clear  and  inspiring 
picture  to  his  mind.  It  was  what  he  had  always 
felt  about  his  father,  and  it  connected  him  with 
the  dead  Romans  upon  the  Camp.  They  also  had 
held  the  fort.  The  hint  of  willing  sacrifice  in  the 
words  about  supplying  ammunition  brought  tears 


THE  CATFISH  137 

of  gratitude  into  George's  eyes,  though  it  also  re- 
minded him  of  his  great  responsibility.  He  won- 
dered if  old  Walter  knew  and  acquiesced  in  the 
division  of  labor.  It  comforted  him  to  remember 
that  old  Walter  always  preferred  playing  back  at 
football;  he  had  acquired  quite  a  reputation  as  a 
goal-keeper. 

Inspired  by  the  feeling  of  a  new  harmony,  and  by 
the  vague  though  stimulating  prospect  of  skirmish- 
ing in  front,  George  went  back  to  St.  Piran's  and 
flung  himself  into  work  and  play  with  renewed 
ardor.  He  was  now  looked  upon  as  a  boy  who 
would  almost  certainly  do  something.  If  he  had 
been  present  at  the  conversations  in  the  masters' 
common  room,  it  might  have  struck  him  as  sig- 
nificant that,  while  the  man  responsible  for  each 
part  of  his  education  expressed  satisfaction  with 
his  progress  therein,  his  private  opinion  was  that 
Tracy's  real  talent  was  for  something  else.  The 
rivalry  was  now  inverted,  in  the  sense  that  each 
man  thought  that  the  others  were  insufficiently 
aware  of  the  splendid  material  at  their  command. 
Something  of  this  came  to  George,  in  stray  re- 
marks and  questions,  and  he  sometimes  had  the 
uncomfortable  feeling  that  one  master  was  using 
him  to  find  out  something  disparaging  about  an- 


138  THE  CATFISH 

other.  This  offended  his  notions  of  honor,  but  he 
did  not  connect  the  circumstance  with  any  pecul- 
iarity in  himself. 

The  only  thing  that  caused  him  any  concern  was 
a  slight  though  increasing  difference  in  his  rela- 
tions with  Darragh.  They  were  not  less  friendly 
than  before,  but  the  development  of  their  respec- 
tive interests  would  not  allow  such  close  com- 
panionship as  formerly.  Nobody  bothered  about 
Darragh  at  work  or  play.  He  was  now  accepted 
as  the  sort  of  boy  who  must  be  allowed  to  pass 
through  school  by  a  series  of  loopholes  between 
one  officially  recognized  activity  and  another. 
From  the  scholastic  point  of  view  he  was  a  failure, 
though  his  general  intelligence  and  sweet  nature, 
as  well  as  his  witty  tongue  and  now  remarkable 
artistic  talent,  kept  him  from  being  despised. 
Sometimes  when  George  was  tired,  or  over-excited, 
or  perplexed  by  what  he  could  only  regard  as  an 
unwholesome  curiosity  on  the  part  of  the  masters, 
he  envied  Darragh  the  protective  atmosphere  cre- 
ated by  his  one  shining  gift  and  blessed  incapacity 
in  everything  else.  Particularly  since,  as  time 
went  on,  George  began  to  feel  that  the  progress 
that  kept  him  in  the  public  eye  was  due  to  gen- 
eral enthusiasm,  rather  than  to  special  aptitude  for 


THE  CATFISH  139 

this  or  that  particular  task.  It  was  a  sort  of 
Dutch  courage  that  was  carrying  him  on. 

Not  that  he  doubted  the  reality  of  his  inspiration, 
though  this,  again,  drew  him  a  little  further  from 
Darragh.  On  his  visits  to  Darragh's  home,  he 
had  noticed  that  Mrs.  Darragh  did  not  go  to  church, 
but  his  own  religious  instincts  being  then  unawak- 
ened,  he  had  not  attached  particular  importance  to 
the  fact.  During  his  week  at  Bourneside,  Darragh 
had  gone  to  church  with  the  others  as  a  matter 
of  course.  It  was  a  shock  to  George  to  learn  that 
Darragh  had  been  brought  up  without  any  religious 
convictions.  This,  perhaps,  would  not  have  per- 
manently disturbed  him  if  it  had  not  been  that 
Darragh,  evidently  with  his  mother's  approval,  was 
prepared  to  submit  to  the  religious  discipline  of 
St.  Piran's,  even  to  the  length  of  being  confirmed 
when  his  turn  came.  He  said  it  didn't  matter. 

George  did  not  wish  to  judge,  but  he  could  not 
help  showing  his  uneasiness.  He  spoke  bashfully 
of  the  strength  and  the  feeling  of  brotherhood  he 
derived  from  communion. 

"  But  I  feel  that  every  time  I  eat  bread  and 
butter,"  said  Darragh.  "  I  don't  mean  that  I  think 
about  it  fresh  every  time,  but  the  feeling  is  always 
there." 


140  THE  CATFISH 

"  But  don't  you  believe  in  God  ?  "  said  George. 

"  I  suppose  I  do,"  said  Darragh.  "  I've  never 
really  thought  about  it.  My  mother  says  that  only 
silly  and  priggish  people  want  to  invent  another 
word  for  —  all  this,  you  know,"  for  they  were  sit- 
ting on  the  sand-hills  overlooking  the  estuary. 
"  Like  not  calling  yourself  English  because  you 
happen  to  be  Irish,"  he  added. 

The  illustration  did  not  strike  George  as  a  very 
good  one,  but  he  was  not  prepared  to  argue.  He 
felt  that  Darragh's  easy  pantheism  was  wrong 
somewhere,  but  when  he  tried  to  find  the  weak 
spot  he  could  only  fall  back  on  his  own  limited  ex- 
perience. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  if  I  didn't  believe  that  it  was 
all  true  —  in  just  that  way  —  I  don't  think  I  could 
keep  on  trying." 

"  No,  perhaps  not,"  said  Darragh,  and  then 
looked  uncomfortable. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  said  George. 

"  Oh  —  nothing,"  said  Darragh,  though,  as 
George  saw,  he  was  half  inclined  to  unburden  him- 
self. 

"  Go  on,"  said  George  sternly.  "  I  don't  mind 
your  beastly  cheek,  and,  anyhow,  I  shall  kick  you 
if  vou  don't." 


THE  CATFISH  141 

"  Of  course  it's  awful  cheek  of  me,"  said  Darragh 
nervously,  "  but  it's  just  that  about  trying  — 

"  We're  not  all  lazy  Irishmen,"  said  George, 
though  he  felt  vaguely  disturbed. 

"  Oh,  of  course,  I  know  that  your  people  want  it, 
and  all  that,"  said  Darragh,  "but  you  don't  seem 
to  me  to  be  that  sort" 

"What  sort?" 

"  Well  —  scholarships  and  things,"  said  Dar- 
ragh, wriggling  with  unaccustomed  embarrassment. 
"  Look  at  Philpot  and  Greaves." 

"  Oh,  I  know  I  ain't  as  clever  as  Philpot  and 
Greaves,"  said  George. 

"Don't  be  an  ass,"  said  Darragh;  "you  know 
you're  a  lot  cleverer.  At  least,  clever  is  not  the 
right  word."  He  dug  furiously  in  the  sand,  and 
then  added  in  a  low  tone,  "You're  too  big  to  be 
clever  —  in  that  way,  Tracy." 

"Oh,  it's  all  jolly  fine  for  you,"  said  George, 
mollified  by  the  hero-worship.  "  You  know  what 
you  can  do,  and  you  don't  want  to  do  anything  else. 
I've  got  to  find  out  what  I'm  good  for;  and  wouldn't 
it  be  rather  cheek  of  me  to  say  what  is  the  best  way 
of  finding  out?  " 

He  knew  that  it  was  plausible  rather  than  sin- 
cere, but  Darragh  did  not  continue  the  argument. 


142  THE  CATFISH 

That  was  the  worst  of  Darragh;  he  made  you  feel 
insincere  by  just  looking.  George  often  felt  that 
his  affection  for  Darragh  was  not  very  far  from 
hate.  It  was  odd  that  all  the  people  he  liked  best 
seemed  to  have  the  same  effect  upon  him. 

After  that  he  kept  Darragh  at  a  little  distance. 
He  persuaded  himself  that  the  reason  was  Dar- 
ragh's  unsatisfactory  point  of  view  about  religion, 
and  he  derived  comfort  from  the  fact  that  Dar- 
ragh was  Irish.  The  Irish  were  naturally  a  dis- 
loyal people,  lacking  in  what  might  be  called  the 
public-school  spirit.  In  his  heart  George  knew  that 
Darragh  was  not  dangerous  to  his  faith  in  religion 
or  in  the  wisdom  of  his  elders,  but  to  his  faith 
in  himself.  He  would  not  have  admitted  that  part 
of  his  ambition  was  now  to  "  show  Darragh." 

During  the  summer  holidays,  George  was  con- 
scious of  keeping  the  subject  of  Darragh  in  the 
background.  One  day,  his  mother  said  to  him: 

"  Are  you  and  Darragh  as  great  friends  as 
ever?" 

"Of  course  we  are,  mother,"  he  said  rather 
stiffly. 

"  You  do  not  speak  of  him  so  much  as  you  did," 
said  his  mother. 

"  Oh,  you  can't  be  always  talking  about  the  same 


THE  CATFISH  143 

person,"  said  George.  "  Besides,"  he  added,  "  as 
you  get  moved  up,  you  get  more  into  different  sets. 
Darragh's  a  good  chap,  but  he  isn't  really  a  swotter, 
and  he's  no  good  at  games.  But  we  see  a  lot  of 
each  other  in  between." 

His  mother's  curiosity  irritated  him.  He  said 
to  himself  that,  if  she  only  knew,  she  would  be 
the  first  to  discourage  his  friendship  with  Darragh. 
He  had  said  nothing  to  her  about  Darragh's  lack 
of  religion.  Partly  because,  though  he  couldn't 
explain  it,  he  felt  that  it  was  not  really  lack  of 
religion,  and  partly  because  he  was  afraid  that  his 
mother  might  take  the  matter  too  seriously. 
Women  could  not  let  well  alone.  For  one  thing, 
she  ought  to  be  glad  that  he  did  not  let  himself 
get  too  fond  of  Darragh  and  his  mother.  In  his 
heart  he  believed  that  she  was  glad,  and  that  was 
why  she  asked  questions. 

"  You  see,  mother,"  he  said,  "  of  course,  I  like 
the  Darraghs  awfully,  but  they're  not  really  our 
sort.  They  only  care  about  books  and  pictures  and 
music." 

(<  That's  why  I'm  glad  they  are  your  friends," 
she  said.  "  We  are  all  so  ignorant  about  things 
like  that." 

"  Oh,   mother,   don't  be  silly,"  he  said,  kissing 


144  THE  CATFISH 

her.  "  You  know  that  I  wouldn't  swap  you  for 
all  the  clever  people  in  the  world." 

She  remained  silent  for  a  few  moments,  smiling 
to  herself,  and  then  said  with  adorable  shyness : 

"  You  know,  George,  sometimes  I  think  that  you 
ought  to  have  been  a  poet." 

That  was  too  far  from  probability  to  cause  em- 
barrassment, and  George  roared  with  laughter. 

"  You'd  better  tell  the  pater  that,"  he  said,  "  and 
see  how  he'll  look.  Or  I'll  go  up  to  the  Head  and 
say :  *  Please,  sir,  my  mother  wants  me  to  be  a 
poet.' " 

"  Never  mind,"  said  his  mother  good-humoredly, 
"  I  know  what  I  mean." 

He  continued  to  tease  her,  making  up  doggerel 
about  different  members  of  the  family.  But  though 
the  conversation  only  amused  him  at  the  time,  after- 
ward it  caused  him  some  concern.  Not  because 
he  thought  his  mother  was  right,  but  because  her 
remark  reminded  him  of  the  division  between  his 
parents.  It  was  an  old  belief  of  his  that  his  mother 
managed  his  father.  Although  it  was  his  father 
who  made  plans  for  his  future,  it  was  his  mother 
who  started  the  idea  of  his  going  up  to  Oxford; 
and  he  shrewdly  suspected  that,  once  having  got 
him  there,  she  would  not  care  very  much  whether 


THE  CATFISH  145 

he  followed  his  father's  plans  or  not.  Women 
were  like  that;  they  did  not  seem  to  have  any  sense 
of  honor.  Mrs.  Darragh's  disingenuous  advice  to 
her  son  about  religion  was  only  another  example 
of  the  same  defect. 

The  result  was  to  deepen  George's  feeling  of 
loyalty  to  his  father.  More  and  more  he  was 
learning  to  admire  the  quiet  man  who,  as  he  got 
older,  was  growing  gentler  and  more  affectionate, 
though  never  demonstrative,  to  his  own  family, 
and  rather  more  reserved  to  the  world  outside.  It 
was  always  as  if  he  saw  danger  ahead,  and  were 
silently  making  preparations  to  hold  the  fort.  To 
the  Bourneside  estate  was  now  added  a  strip  of 
low-lying  gardens,  with  two  cottages,  between  the 
nearer  end  of  the  Orchard  and  the  Bourne,  so 
that  Mr.  Tracy  was  now,  in  the  technical  sense,  a 
landlord.  He  seemed  to  derive  peculiar  satisfaction 
from  improving  the  comfort  of  his  tenants,  though 
he  was  not  a  man  to  care  for  popularity. 

George  encouraged  Walter  to  talk  about  their 
father.  Walter  had  a  tremendous  regard  for  him 
as  a  man  of  business,  and  George  gathered  that,  in 
the  affairs  of  the  bank,  he  stood  for  a  certain  in- 
flexibility of  principle.  He  was  a  bold  speculator, 
but  he  would  never  take  risks  that  could  not  be 


146  THE  CATFISH 

stated  clearly  on  paper.  Often  there  were  differ- 
ences on  this  account  between  him  and  his  partners, 
who  were  inclined  to  listen  to  the  blandishments  of 
the  new  element  in  business.  Walter  did  not  put 
these  things  very  clearly  to  George,  but  the  latter, 
to  his  own  slight  astonishment,  found  himself 
reading  between  the  lines.  Sometimes  he  felt  that, 
if  he  only  knew  the  terms,  he  would  have  under- 
stood business  better  than  old  Walter,  whose  usual 
comment  was,  "  Presently  there  will  be  no  gentle- 
men left  in  business  " ;  and  there  were  moments 
when  he  even  regretted  that  he  was  not  going  into 
the  bank.  There  was  a  thrill,  a  romance  about 
the  transactions  that  Walter  spoke  of,  that  the  real 
business  men  seemed  to  miss. 

It  puzzled  George  that  Walter  did  not  seem  to 
see  anything  in  their  father's  passion  for  land. 
He  regarded  it  as  an  amiable  weakness,  a  sort  of 
hobby,  to  be  welcomed  in  its  results  as  increasing 
the  family  importance.  With  the  extended  social 
opportunities  of  manhood,  Walter  was  getting 
quite  keen  about  the  family  importance;  he  had 
become  a  member  of  the  Cleeve  Tennis  Club  and 
wanted  his  father  to  get  him  a  commission  in  the 
Volunteers.  George,  who  cared  nothing  about  the 
family  importance,  refused  to  believe  that  his 


THE  CATFISH  147 

father's  interest  in  land  was  only  a  hobby;  he  ob- 
served that  when  his  father  spoke  of  dishonest  or 
incompetent  people  in  business  he  did  so  with 
quiet  contempt,  but  that  bad  landlords  made  him 
really  angry.  George  felt  that  if  anybody  tried 
to  cheat  his  father  in  business,  he  would  stand  up 
for  his  rights  in  a  legal  way,  but  that  any  attempt 
to  meddle  with  his  land  would  arouse  the  sacred 
fury  that  he  himself  had  felt  when  Tom  Burchell 
broke  his  flower. 

But  when  in  an  expansive  moment  George  sug- 
gested to  Walter  that  their  father  regarded  Bourne- 
side  as  a  sort  of  trust  in  the  service  of  his  country, 
Walter  laughed  and  called  him  an  old  romancer. 

"  You  always  did  want  to  drag  in  some  out- 
landish idea  or  other,"  he  said. 

The  remark  reminded  George  of  the  scene  with 
Mary  Festing  in  the  nursery.  Really,  when  he 
thought  of  it,  his  father's  regard  for  his  tenants 
was  rather  like  his  own  inexplicable  feelings  about 
the  Servians.  Lest  Walter  should  remember  the 
same  episode,  he  hastily  changed  the  subject  to  an- 
other one  of  greater  safety. 

But  he  felt  a  secret  satisfaction  when,  on  Walter's 
broaching  the  subject  of  a  commission  in  the  Cleeve 
Rifles,  his  father  said : 


148  THE  CATFISH 

"  Well,  personally,  I  would  rather  you  went  into 
the  Yeomanry." 

Walter  looked  dissatisfied,  and  Amelia  said: 
"  But  it's  such  an  awful  uniform."  And  George, 
to  his  amusement,  saw  by  Walter's  face  that  the 
same  objection  was  in  his  mind. 

"  Just  as  you  like,  pater,"  said  Walter,  "  only,  of 
course,  there  will  be  the  expense  of  a  horse — " 

"  And  besides,"  said  Amelia,  "  the  Yeomanry 
officers  are  such  a  lot  of  chaw-bacons.  Fancy  hav- 
ing old  Burchell  for  a  captain." 

Mr.  Tracy  laughed  good-humoredly,  but,  as 
George  observed,  rather  shyly. 

"  You'd  better  please  yourself,"  he  said  to  Walter. 
"  Remind  me  to  speak  to  Colonel  Fossett  about  it 
to-morrow." 

All  the  time  George  was  yearning  to  show  his 
sympathy  with  his  father.  He  saw  perfectly  well 
that  his  father,  like  himself,  would  not  betray  him- 
self to  people  who  did  not  understand.  Of  course, 
he  wanted  Walter  to  go  into  the  Yeomanry,  be- 
cause the  Yeomanry  represented  the  land,  and 
George  felt  with  elation  that  if  he  had  been  the 
subject,  his  father  would  have  told  him  the  reason. 
He  had  found  the  right  word  for  his  father;  he 
was  an  idealist. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

UNFORTUNATELY,  the  larger  view  of  life 
that  George  took  back  to  St.  Piran's  did  not 
help  him  with  his  immediate  problems.  Definite 
association  with  the  classical  side,  and  close  contact 
with  born  scholars,  compelled  him  to  recognize  that 
classics  were  not  really  his  game.  His  native 
powers  only  took  him  as  far  as  the  understanding 
of  principles;  when  once  he  saw  the  way  things 
went,  or  worked,  his  curiosity  declined.  If  he  had 
thought  of  the  distinction,  he  would  have  said  that 
he  cared  for  syntax,  but  not  for  grammar.  His 
mind  pulled  up  short  before  anything  like  an  arbi- 
trary rule,  and  he  had  the  sort  of  memory  that, 
as  if  by  some  instinct  of  self-preservation  for  its 
proper  function,  refuses  to  be  burdened  with  a 
verbal  cargo.  He  did  not  really  love  literature  for 
its  own  sake,  and  when  once  he  knew  what  was 
in  a  book  he  did  not  particularly  want  to  read  it. 
He  felt  that  he  already  possessed  it. 

He  worked  hard,  but  he  knew  that  he  was  forcing 

his  mind  over  obstacles  and  not,  like  Philpot  and 

149 


150  THE  CATFISH 

Greaves,  his  nearest  rivals,  taking  them  in  the  stride 
of  a  genuine  impulse  for  learning.  It  was  only 
the  large  general  impulse  derived  from  the  sense 
of  a  new  harmony  within  his  nature,  and  the  desire 
to  please  his  father,  that  enabled  him  to  keep  abreast 
of  them. 

What  made  it  all  the  more  galling  was  the  con- 
viction of  real  though  undefined  ability.  He  did  not 
need  Darragh  to  tell  him  that  Philpot  and  Greaves 
were  not  his  intellectual  superiors.  Yet  he  could 
not  have  said  honestly  that  he  would  have  done 
better  if  he  had  been  entered  on  the  modern  side. 
The  same  defects  would  have  hindered  him  there. 
As  when  he  made  machines  that  wouldn't  work 
in  the  nursery  at  Bourneside,  his  curiosity  flagged 
with  the  understanding  of  principles. 

It  was  just  the  same  in  the  playing-field.  He  was 
the  alternate  hope  and  despair  of  the  captain  of 
the  school  eleven. 

"  Tracy  goes  in,"  he  said,  "  and  you  say : 
'  There's  a  man  who  bats  with  his  head.'  But  the 
moment  he  gets  the  hang  of  the  bowling,  it's  all 
over.  It  isn't  that  he  gets  cock-sure;  he  loses  in- 
terest in  what  he's  doing.  He  seems  to  think  that 
cricket  is  a  sort  of  Euclid.  You  can  see  him  say- 
ing '  Q.E.D.,'  and  the  next  thing  is  Nunc  Dimit- 


THE  CATFISH  151 

tis,  and  out  he  comes,  grinning  all  over  his   face 
as  if  he'd  done  something  clever." 

George  could  not  explain  why  he  caved  in  at 
the  wrong  moment.  He  really  wanted  to  distin- 
guish himself  at  work  and  play.  He  could  and 
did  play  up  for  his  side,  but  he  always  knew  when 
he  was  doing  it.  Fellows  who  really  played  up 
for  their  side  couldn't  help  it,  though  they  might 
make  a  virtue  of  necessity  afterward.  He  said 
to  himself  that  it  would  be  all  right  when  he  got 
to  the  bar.  The  worst  of  it  was,  he  had  begun 
to  doubt  if  the  course  mapped  out  by  his  father 
was  the  best  way  to  get  there.  Sensitive  to  words, 
he  began  to  associate  the  bar  of  his  father's  con- 
versation with  the  bar  of  the  estuary.  His  whole 
nature  responded  to  the  urgent  summons  of  the 
buoy,  but  before  he  could  launch  out  into  the  sea; 
of  affairs  he  must  get  over  the  bar.  It  was  the 
intervening  channel  that  bothered  him.  As  he 
watched  the  coasters  going  down  from  Trenanvore, 
the  little  smoky  port  above  St.  Piran's,  he  thought 
that  possibly  in  a  figurative  sense  he  drew  too  much 
water.  He  was  not  conceited,  but  Darragh's  "  too 
big  to  be  clever  "  had  fatally  stuck.  The  tide  that 
served  Philpot  and  Greaves  was  too  shallow  for 
him ;  or  the  impulse  derived  from  his  native  powers 


152  THE  CATFISH 

ran  into  too  many  side  channels  of  speculation  or 
backwaters  of  dreaming.  Moreover,  he  had  no 
pilot.  His  masters  were  trained  to  vessels  of  a 
certain  draught;  his  father  frankly  did  not  know 
the  shoals  and  sand-banks  of  learning;  and  after 
all,  it  was  his  mother  and  not  his  father  who  had 
first  proposed  the  channel.  He  could  trust  his 
father  as  a  deep-sea  pilot;  once  at  the  bar  he  would 
be  all  right,  and  then,  looking  at  the  far  horizon 
that  now  flashed  with  such  enchanting  though  unde- 
fined possibilities,  he  began  to  wonder  whether,  after 
all,  the  bank  wouldn't  have  done  as  well  for  his 
father's  purpose  as  the  bar. 

The  practical  result  of  these  fantastic  specula- 
tions, which,  nevertheless,  he  knew  to  be  prompted 
by  reality,  was  that  his  reports  began  to  be  dis- 
couraging. The  judgment,  suspended  for  so  long, 
gradually  recorded  itself  in  vaguely  disappointed 
comments  by  one  master  and  another,  and  a  gen- 
eral expression  of  concern  by  the  Head.  Mr. 
Tracy  was  too  far  out  of  his  depth  to  interpret 
the  signs  correctly,  but  his  reading  of  the  last  re- 
port was  conveyed  in  the  nervous  remark,  "  You 
really  are  working,  old  man  ?  " 

George  could  honestly  assure  his  father  that  he 
was.  The  very  kindness  of  the  question  sapped 


THE  CATFISH  153 

his  courage  to  say :  "  But  it's  no  good."  He  went 
back  to  St.  Piran's  as  to  a  forlorn  hope.  At  mid- 
term he  was  called  up  to  an  interview  with  the 
Head.  In  spite  of  his  distress,  George  recognized 
with  grim  amusement  that  the  Head's  conception 
of  his  case  was  very  much  less  clear  than  his  own. 
The  Head  was  a  small  man,  with  delicate  features, 
a  large  round  forehead  and  a  wide  silky  beard. 
He  always  reminded  George  of  the  picture  of 
Harun-al-Raschid  in  the  Moxon  Tennyson.  He 
ought  to  have  worn  a  scimitar.  By  instinct  a 
.  scholar,  he  created  an  atmosphere  of  great  personal 
dignity  by  moving  slowly  and  speaking  seldom;  but 
on  occasions  like  the  present  one  he  sought  to  in- 
spire confidence  by  adopting  a  man-of -the- world 
attitude,  expressed  in  the  use  of  slang  and  by  lean- 
ing with  crossed  legs  against  the  arm  of  his  chair 
—  which  made  him  look  more  Oriental  than  ever. 

"  You  know,  Tracy,"  he  said,  after  preliminaries 
about  the  prospects  of  the  school  eleven,  "  you'll 
have  to  do  better  than  this  if  you  mean  to  get  a 
scholarship." 

"  I  know  that,  sir,"  said  George  pathetically. 
The  answer,  as  he  saw  directly,  gave  the  wrong 
impression.  The  Head  looked  at  him  sharply 
through  his  round  glasses  and  said: 


154  THE  CATFISH 

"Well,  why  don't  you  pull  yourself  together?" 

That  struck  George  as  really  illuminating.  If 
only  he  could  bring  the  whole  of  himself  to  bear 
upon  the  tasks  of  the  moment!  He  tried  to  ex- 
plain his  difficulties,  conscious  all  the  time  that  it 
sounded  as  if  he  were  excusing  himself  for  laziness. 

"  It  seems  to  me,  Tracy,"  said  the  Head  dryly, 
"  that  you  can  do  anything  you  like." 

"  That's  just  it,  sir,"  said  George  eagerly.  "  It's 
because  I  can  do  it  that  I  can't.  I  mean,"  he  added 
confusedly,  "  I  don't  feel  as  if  I  must  do  it." 

The  Head  looked  at  him  for  a  moment,  and  then 
said  politely : 

"  There's  nothing  the  matter  with  your  health, 
Tracy,  I  trust?" 

"  Indeed,  sir,  no,"  said  George  hastily,  "  I'm  as 
fit  as  a  fiddle." 

That  was  true.  He  was  now  a  well-grown  boy 
of  seventeen,  broad-shouldered  and  clear-colored. 

"  Since  when,"  said  the  Head,  "  have  you  dis- 
covered that  scholarships  are  to  be  won  by  inner 
compulsion  ?  " 

"  I've  known  it  all  my  life,  sir,"  said  George  in 
a  burst  of  candor,  and  then,  seeing  an  ironical  smile 
curving  the  beard  before  him,  he  added:  "Look 
at  Darragh,  sir." 


THE  CATFISH  155 

"Darragh?"  said  the  Head,  momentarily  puz- 
zled, and  then,  indifferently :  "  Oh,  Darragh.  But 
what  has  Darragh  to  do  with  your  working  for  a 
scholarship  ? " 

"  Nothing,  sir,"  said  George,  though  he  felt  that 
Darragh's  opinion  on  the  subject  was  worth  quot- 
ing. "  But  what  I  mean  is  that  Darragh  draws 
well  because  he  can't  help  it." 

"  Darragh  undoubtedly  has  a  great  natural  gift," 
conceded  the  Head  judicially.  "  I  haven't  ob- 
served, Tracy,"  he  continued,  "  anything  that 
could  be  called  evidence  of  genius  in  any  depart- 
ment of  your  work  that  has  come  under  my  notice. 
You  are  just  the  ordinary  boy  of  good  general  abil- 
ities." 

"  Oh,  of  course  I  know  that,  sir,"  said  George, 
overcome  with  confusion  at  seeming  to  claim  spe- 
cial consideration.  "  But  — " 

"  But,"  continued  the  Head,  waving  him  to  si- 
lence, "you  have  some  natural  advantages  which 
many  boys  —  and  men  —  might  envy.  You  are  in 
excellent  health,  and  you  have,  I  understand,  an  all- 
round  aptitude  for  the  games  that  the  experience 
of  several  generations  in  our  leading  schools  has 
proved  to  play  a  by  no  means  unimportant  part  in 
the  preparation  for  the  race  of  life.  Indeed,  the 


156  THE  CATFISH 

tendency  nowadays  is  perhaps  to  lay  too  much  stress 
upon  this  aspect  of  education.  However,  I  may 
say,  Tracy,  that  I  have  never  ceased  to  regret  my 
own  lack  of  proficiency  in  field  sports;  and  some 
of  your  nearest  companions  " —  George  knew  he 
meant  Philpot  and  Greaves  — "  are  undoubtedly 
handicapped,  whether  by  defective  vision  or  other 
bodily  disabilities,  as  you  are  not.  Yet  they  do  not 
complain." 

"  Oh,  please,  sir,  don't  think  I'm  grumbling," 
said  George,  now  thoroughly  reduced  to  a  sense  of 
his  own  unworthiness. 

"  I'm  glad  to  hear  it,"  said  the  Head  with  genial 
irony.  "  You  see,  Tracy,"  he  continued,  "  our 
public-school  system  is  not  the  product  of  yesterday 
or  of  hasty  generalization.  It  has  been  slowly  and 
almost  automatically  formed  through  several  cen- 
turies upon  close  and  untiring  observation,  by  not 
altogether  despicable  intellects,  of  every  sort  of 
boy.  Exceptions  due  to  special  talents  there  must 
always  be,  but,  even  so,  the  system  is  elastic  enough 
to  insure  their  preservation,  with  such  cultivation 
of  the  general  powers  as  will  fit  the  subject  to  take 
a  dignified  place  in  life.  Your  friend  Darragh  is 
an  example.  I  do  not  think  he  will  suffer  in  his 
career  as  an  artist  by  reason  of  his  years  at  St. 


THE  CATFISH  157 

Piran's.  As  I  said,  you  are  not  in  any  way  ex- 
ceptional —  except,  perhaps,  by  a  fortunate  balance 
of  bodily  and  mental  powers,  manifestly  in  your 
favor  in  the  emulation  for  honors  designed,  I  may 
say,  not  for  morbid  intellectual  development,  but 
for  such  attainment  in  certain  carefully  selected 
branches  of  learning  as  is  within  the  capacity  of 
the  good  average  mind.  I  trust  that  the  next  few 
months  will  show  that  you  have  made  proper  use 
of  your  advantages." 

Feeling  strangely  emptied  of  identity,  George 
turned  to  go,  but,  as  if  touched  by  his  crestfallen 
appearance,  the  Head  added  kindly: 

"  I  may  say,  Tracy,  that  all  the  time  you  have 
been  here  your  general  conduct  has  been  found  to 
be  excellent.  I  say  this  the  more  gladly  because 
your  conversation  to-day  reminds  me  that  when  you 
came  to  me  to  be  prepared  for  confirmation  I  ob- 
served a  slight  tendency  to  —  ah  —  priggishness. 
That  will  never  do,"  he  said,  with  a  smile  and  a 
great  air  of  worldliness.  "  Play  the  game,  Tracy, 
but  leave  others  to  determine  the  rules." 

At  the  time,  George  was  as  willing  to  believe  that 
he  was  a  prig  as  anything  else.  He  blushed  and 
stammered  something  about  not  meaning  to  be,  and 
the  Head,  still  smiling,  continued: 


158  THE  CATFISH 

"  There's  just  one  other  thing,  Tracy.  Your 
friendship  with  Darragh.  Don't  think  I  wish  to 
discourage  it.  On  the  contrary,  such  friendships 
between  men  of  different  temperaments  can  not  fail 
to  be  beneficial  to  both  concerned,  and  I  happen 
to  know  that  you  have  more  than  once  shielded 
your  friend  from  the  inconveniences  that  a  per- 
haps over-sensitive  nature  may  suffer  in  the  healthy 
give-and-take  of  a  public  school.  That  is  as  it 
should  be;  but  it  is  necessary  to  remember  that 
Darragh  is  exceptional,  and  that  what,  in  view  of 
his  special  talent  and  chosen  career,  may  be  vir- 
tues—  the  love  of  imaginative  literature  and  the 
habit  of  —  ah  —  esthetic  speculation  —  are  not  de- 
sirable for  you  to  imitate.  You,  I  take  it,  are  cut 
out  for  the  more  active  exercises  of  the  intellect. 
Share  your  hours  of  recreation  with  Darragh;  but 
do  not  seek  to  model  yourself. upon  him." 

Evidently  convinced  that  he  had  gone  into 
George's  case  very  thoroughly,  the  Head  patted  him 
on  the  shoulder  and  added,  as  a  last  word : 

"We  expect  great  things  of  you,  Tracy.  If  you 
are  in  any  difficulty  —  I  don't  mean  with  regard 
to  questions  that  may  safely  be  left  to  older  heads, 
but  with  regard  to  your  actual  work  —  come  to 
me." 


THE  CATFISH  159 

At  the  time  George  felt  only  remorse.  He  was 
a  prig,  an  upstart,  a  slacker  —  a  complete  rotter, 
as  he  phrased  it  to  himself.  But  when  he  had 
recovered  from  the  immediate  effect  of  the  Head's 
flowing  periods,  he  began  to  question  the  facts. 
He  might  be  a  rotter;  but  he  wasn't  the  precise 
kind  of  rotter  the  Head  supposed  him  to  be.  He 
had  no  quarrel  with  the  public-school  system;  he 
had  never  thought  about  it.  What  he  wanted  to 
know  was  how  to  get  all  of  himself  into  his  work. 

It  was  all  his  own  fault  for  attempting  to  go  in 
for  a  scholarship.  If  he  didn't  know  what  he  was, 
he  knew  now  what  he  wasn't.  There  were  enough 
examples  round  him  for  comparison.  He  was  not, 
like  Philpot  and  Greaves,  a  scholar;  he  was  not, 
like  other  boys  he  could  name,  in  the  technical 
sense  a  sportsman;  he  was  not,  like  Darragh,  an 
artist.  He  could  have  kept  his  end  up  in  any  of 
these  phases  of  activity,  but  keeping  your  end  up 
simply  wasn't  good  enough. 

Convinced  that  nobody  could  help  him,  George 
faced  his  troubles  in  a  philosophical  spirit.  He 
would  give  the  scholarship  a  fair  chance.  At  the 
end  of  the  summer  term  his  report  showed  a  slight 
improvement  —  in  detail ;  but  George,  with  a  new 
sense  of  maturity,  was  not  deceived.  He  had  put 


i6o  THE  CATFISH 

on  a  spurt,  but  he  had  not  got  second  wind.  When 
you  got  second  wind  you  were  not  conscious  of 
trying.  He  did  not  cease  to  try,  but  he  knew  that 
he  was  now  at  the  end  of  his  resources  and  matched 
with  specialists.  At  Christmas,  his  report  said  that 
it  was  doubtful  whether  without  a  great  effort  he 
would  stand  any  chance  of  the  scholarship. 

Mr.  Tracy,  though  disappointed,  took  the  report 
in  a  practical  spirit. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  it's  no  use  bothering  about 
that.  I've  no  reason  to  suppose  that  you  haven't 
done  your  best." 

George  admired  his  father  for  instinctively  see- 
ing the  futility  of  "  special  efforts  ".  He  believed 
that  if  his  father  had  only  known  the  rules  of  the 
game  in  educational  matters,  he  would  have  been  a 
better  guide  than  the  Head.  He  did  not  even  feel 
it  necessary  to  assure  his  father  that  he  had  done 
his  best. 

Mr.  Tracy  proposed  that  he  should  remain  at 
St.  Piran's  for  another  year,  and  then  go  up  to 
Oxford,  "  in  the  ordinary  way."  George  felt  that 
now  or  never  was  the  time  to  speak  out,  and  with- 
out a  very  clear  idea  of  what  he  was  proposing,  he 
said: 

"  Am  I  good  enough  for  the  bank?  " 


THE  CATFISH  161 

Mr.  Tracy  stared  at  him  for  a  moment,  and  then 
said,  with  a  short  laugh: 

"  Good  enough  ?  But  it  strikes  me  as  rather  a 
waste." 

George  misunderstood  him,  and  began  to  say 
how  sorry  he  was  that  he  had  let  his  father  in  for 
all  the  expense  of  a  public  school.  But  Mr.  Tracy 
said: 

"  That  is  not  what  I  mean,  my  dear  boy.  You 
couldn't  be  expected  to  know  until  you  tried,  and, 
anyhow,  I  shall  never  regret  that  you  went  to  St. 
Piran's.  No,  but  I  think  you're  fit  for  something 
better  than  the  bank." 

George  recognized  that  it  was  no  time  for 
modesty  and  he  said : 

"  Well,  if  I  am,  I  believe  I  can  find  it  out  as  well 
there  as  anywhere  else."  He  thought  that  it  would 
be  cheek  to  add,  "  Look  at  you,"  but  that  was 
what  he  was  thinking. 

The  idea  of  the  bank  was  evidently  new  to  Mr. 
Tracy,  but  he  did  not  seem  displeased.  After 
thinking  for  a  moment,  he  said,  almost  apologetic- 
ally: 

"  But  have  you  considered  the  sacrifice  ?  " 

"Yes,  pater,  I've  thought  of  all  that,"  said 
George  with  more  haste  than  truth.  "  I  know  that 


162  THE  CATFISH 

I  should  have  a  ripping  time  at  Oxford,  as  I  have 
had  at  St.  Piran's,  but  at  the  end  of  it  there  would 
only  be  the  same  trouble  over  again.  I'm  not 
really  cut  out  for  anything  to  do  with  books.  Of 
course,"  he  added  rather  sheepishly,  "  I  don't  know 
what  I  am  good  for,  but  I'm  certain  it  isn't  that. 
I've  proved  it." 

Mr.  Tracy  smiled  at  the  boy's  earnestness,  but 
he  was  impressed,  and  after  putting  the  case  for 
the  bank  in  the  least  attractive  colors,  he  finally 
agreed  that  George  should  leave  St.  Piran's  at  the 
end  of  the  next  term. 

George  felt  all  the  advantages  of  dealing  with  a 
practical  mind.  But  he  had  not  reckoned  with  his 
mother.  From  her  remarks  he  could  not  make  out 
whether  her  ambition  for  him  was  mainly  social 
or  whether  she  really  believed  that  he  was  cut  out 
for  intellectual  distinction;  but  she  was  bitterly  dis- 
appointed at  the  change  of  plan.  To  his  grief,  she 
pounced  upon  Darragh  as  the  explanation. 

"  I  believe  he  is  jealous  of  you  because  he  is  not 
going  to  Oxford  himself,"  she  said. 

George  was  too  honest  to  deny  that  Darragh  had 
helped  him  to  recognize  his  unfitness  for  scholar- 
ship, and,  unfortunately,  in  trying  to  make  his 
mother  see  exactly  how  Darragh  had  influenced 


THE  CATFISH  163 

him,  he  said  something  about  Darragh's  religious 
ideas.  That  set  her  talking  about  the  godlessness 
of  artistic  people  in  general.  She  wished  she  had 
known  before  she  allowed  George  to  spend  his 
holidays  with  Darragh.  George  thought  it  was 
all  horribly  unjust  —  particularly  since  his  mother 
had  once  said  that  she  thought  he  ought  to  have 
been  a  poet.  The  result  was  to  make  him  feel  that 
he  could  give  her  less  of  his  confidence  than  ever. 
Particularly  since,  though  she  did  not  actually  say 
so,  he  knew  that  she  was  blaming  his  father  for 
giving  in  to  him.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Tracy  were  not  in 
the  habit  of  discussing  their  differences  before  their 
children,  but  George  observed  that  his  father  was 
going  about  rather  like  a  baited  bull. 

In  after  years  George  recognized  that  he  got 
more  good  out  of  his  last  term  at  St.  Piran's  than 
all  the  preceding  ones.  Released  from  what  he 
felt  to  be  a  false  position,  he  was  able  to  enjoy 
the  spirit  of  the  place  in  all  its  aspects.  Half 
consciously  he  formulated  one  of  the  first  axioms 
in  his  philosophy  of  life:  that  you  got  good  out  of 
things  in  proportion  as  you  didn't  use  them  for 
any  ulterior  purpose  —  perhaps  a  more  direct 
interpretation  of  the  real  advantages  of  a  public 
school  than  the  Head  would  have  been  willing  to 


164  THE  CATFISH 

subscribe  to.  The  odd  thing  was  that  George 
didn't  get  slack  at  his  work,  and  he  saw  with  amuse- 
ment that  his  masters  were  now  convinced  that  he 
had  been  malingering.  He  himself  could  not  have 
explained  why  it  was,  but  the  moment  a  thing 
ceased  to  be  expected  of  him  it  became  attractive. 

It  was  as  if  he  had  come  back  to  St.  Piran's 
with  his  Bourneside  personality,  and  in  spite  of 
his  real  anxiety  to  taste  life,  he  wished  he  could 
have  had  his  school-days  all  over  again  under  the 
new  conditions.  Half  of  him  had  never  properly 
enjoyed  St.  Piran's,  and  what  remorse  he  felt  was 
with  regard  to  his  recaptured  self  rather  than  to 
the  place.  Possibly  his  mother's  denunciation  of 
Darragh  had  something  to  do  with  it,  for  he  felt 
that  he  owed  the  survival  of  himself  to  Darragh. 
With  the  injustice  of  youth,  he  did  not  reflect  that 
his  mother  had  an  earlier  claim  than  Darragh  to 
the  self  he  now  redeemed.  For  some  reason  her 
approaches  had  always  frightened  him,  and  if 
there  is  one  thing  true  of  confidence,  it  is,  "  Ask, 
and  it  shall  not  be  given."  Certainly  the  Head's 
warning  brought  him  nearer  to  Darragh.  George 
knew  that  he  had  never  modeled  himself  on 
Darragh;  the  truth  being  that,  through  all  his  ef- 
forts to  play  the  game  required  of  him,  Darragh 


THE  CATFISH  165 

had  kept  him  in  sight  of  possibilities  which,  in  some 
way  as  yet  unexplained,  represented  his  real  ef- 
fectiveness. 

His  feeling  to  Darragh  was  now  gratitude,  en- 
hanced by  the  misunderstanding  with  his  mother. 
Fortunately,  she  had  not  been  foolish  enough  to 
forbid  the  friendship,  and  George  was  now  ex- 
periencing the  inevitable  sadness  of  divided  affec- 
tion. He  loved  his  mother,  not  less,  but  in  a 
different  way;  he  was  willing  to  give  her  anything 
but  the  one  thing  she  implicitly  asked. 

Everything  conspired  to  keep  his  last  term  at 
St.  Piran's  on  an  emotional  plane.  Darragh  was 
leaving  at  the  end  of  the  year  to  go  to  an  art 
school  in  London,  and  so  there  was  a  double  future 
to  discuss,  with  all  the  possibilities  of  meeting  in 
fresh,  and,  on  one  side,  romantic  circumstances. 
George's  immediate  future  could  not  be  called 
romantic,  but  Darragh  seemed  to  think  he  had 
chosen  wisely.  He  put  it  in  a  phrase :  "  You  are 
banking  yourself." 

Also,  it  was  spring.  In  this  remote  corner  of 
England,  where  the  earth  smiled  even  in  her  winter 
sleep,  the  awakening  was  lovelier  for  delay.  As 
yet,  the  signs  were  faint  and  few:  sallows  broke 
silver,  elm  buds  thickened  and  reddened,  and  there 


1 66  THE  CATFISH 

was  a  milky  splash  of  primroses  in  the  gray  ash- 
grove  behind  the  church  on  the  sand-hills.  No 
longer  urgent  with  heavy  weather,  the  buoy  called 
faintly  over  a  sea  that  flushed  and  paled  with 
hues  of  promise.  To  George,  remembering  other 
springs  as  if  after  an  interval  of  distraction,  it 
seemed  that  his  two  landscapes  had  come  to- 
gether and  made  friends.  He  walked  free  in  both, 
dreaming  of  the  Grove  in  the  bare  mystery  of  the 
hills,  and  beyond  the  calling  of  the  buoy  he  heard 
the  steady  purring  of  the  Waterfall.  Veiled  by 
the  sound  heard,  the  sound  remembered  was  lighter 
in  rhythm,  and  what  had  been  "Doom!"  became 
"  Destiny ! "  The  question  remained,  and  with 
hope  was  mingled  regret.  Never  again  would  he 
know  spring  to  the  calling  of  the  buoy. 

The  impression  that  George  left  behind  him  at 
St.  Piran's  was  that  of  an  attractive  youth  who, 
out  of  some  perversity,  had  flung  away  a  brilliant 
future.  At  a  last  interview,  the  Head  talked  to 
him  very  gravely. 

"  Nothing  in  this  world,  Tracy,"  he  said,  "  can 
be  done  without  trying.  Life  is  a  series  of  efforts, 
and  the  reason  is  not  always  plain.  You  have  good 
powers,  but  there  is  a  strain  of  what  I  can  only 


THE  CATFISH  167 

call   fatalism  in  your  character  which  you  should 
guard  against  at  all  costs." 

George  listened  all  the  more  respectfully  because 
the  Head  had  presented  him  with  a  convenient  word. 
What  the  Head  called  fatalism  he  had  hitherto 
described  to  himself  as  the  knack  of  seeing  when 
it  was  no  go.  Like  the  Irishman  who  fought  a 
duel  as  the  result  of  mixing  up  anchovies  with 
capers,  he  felt  inclined  to  cry :  "  That's  what  I 
meant,  sir!"  But  he  doubted  if  the  Head  would 
understand,  and  he  knew  that  he  couldn't  explain 
without  a  lot  about  machinery  and  the  line  of  least 
resistance,  so  he  said  nothing.  In  passing,  it  struck 
him  as  funny  that  anybody  who  looked  so  Oriental 
as  the  Head  should  object  to  fatalism. 


CHAPTER  IX 

AT  first  George  did  not  know  whether  to  be 
glad  or  sorry  when  his  father  told  him  that 
he  was  to  be  broken  in  at  the  London  branch  of 
the  bank,  instead  of  in  Barstow.  He  appreciated 
what  he  supposed  to  be  the  intention;  his  father 
wished  to  spare  him  the  humiliation  of  seeming 
a  failure  among  people  who  knew  him.  Also  there 
was  his  mother  to  be  considered.  The  first  reason 
would  not  have  weighed  with  George;  having 
chosen,  he  was  prepared  to  "  stick  it  out "  to  the 
last  consequences;  but  he  recognized  the  wisdom 
of  the  second.  His  mother  would  not  say  any 
more,  but  his  immediate  presence  at  home  could 
not  fail  to  be  irritating  to  her.  For  some  reasons, 
George  was  a  little  disappointed  at  the  idea  of  go- 
ing to  London.  His  renewed  sense  of  identity 
made  him  eager  to  revive  the  associations  of 
Bourneside.  He  could  not  have  said  why,  but  he 
could  never  bring  himself  to  believe  that  his  own 
story  was  to  be  lived  anywhere  else.  He  belonged 

to  the  Bourne  as  if,  on  that  night  of  arrival,  when 

168 


THE  CATFISH  169 

he  had  first  awakened  to  a  personal  existence,  he 
had  been  actually  plucked  from  its  waters.  But, 
after  all,  London  was  London,  and  in  a  few  months 
there  would  be  Darragh. 

George's  first  impressions  of  London  were  in- 
fluenced by  the  company  of  his  father  and  a 
preliminary  study  of  the  map.  They  arranged 
themselves  upon  a  groundwork  of  the  Thames,  first 
encountered  at  Maidenhead,  and  two  long  roads, 
all  aiming  east  and  converging  upon  the  city,  where, 
in  addition  to  the  London  branch  of  Burroughs, 
Tracy  &  Co.,  were  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  the  Bank 
of  England  and  the  Tower.  Somewhere  between 
the  two  long  roads,  which  went  through  many 
adventures  under  different  names  before  they 
reached  their  destination,  was  Hyde  Park,  and 
somewhere  upon  the  Thames  was  Westminster. 
One  of  the  long  roads  passed  near  Paddington,  and 
the  true  meaning  of  Paddington  was  indicated  by 
the  fact  that  the  station  where  you  gave  up  your 
ticket  before  arriving  was  called  Westbourne  Park. 
It  was  many  years  before  George  really  took  in  the 
fact  that  London  extended  north  and  south  as  well 
as  east  and  west.  A  sort  of  mental  astigmatism, 
induced  by  poring  over  the  map  in  the  train 
tmder  a  strong  sense  of  the  direction  in  which  he 


i;o  THE  CATFISH 

was  traveling,  made  all  the  horizontal  lines  clear 
and  important  and  left  all  the  vertical  ones  a  lit- 
tle out  of  focus.  When  he  unpacked  his  bag, 
it  gave  him  a  slight  shock  of  surprise  to  find  that 
the  needle  of  his  compass  pointed  across  his 
mental  picture  of  London.  That  night  he  dreamed 
that  he  was  trying  to  twist  the  needle  round  against 
the  current  of  the  Bourne,  while  Mary  Festing 
looked  at  him  out  of  her  narrow  eyes  and  said, 
"  It's  no  good ;  you  can't  stop  in  London,"  and  he 
woke  with  a  slight  headache. 

Mr.  Baldwin,  the  manager  of  the  London  branch, 
had  found  lodgings  for  George  in  Earl's  Court. 
The  exact  address  was  19,  Cardigan  Square, 
Earl's  Court  Road,  W.  The  lady  of  the  house 
was  called  Mrs.  Dove.  She  was  the  widow  of  a 
doctor,  and  had  lost  her  little  all  in  a  bank  smash. 
"  So  it  seems  like  Providence,  your  coming  here," 
she  said  to  George.  Particularly,  she  added,  be- 
cause Earl's  Court  was  on  gravel,  and  George 
supposed  her  to  mean  that  she  wouldn't  have 
known  that  if  she  hadn't  been  a  doctor's  widow. 
George  liked  Mrs.  Dove  from  the  beginning.  She 
managed  to  look  both  tidy  and  distraught  at  the 
same  time,  which  somehow  struck  him  as  an 
attractive  combination,  and  it  was  she  who  first 


THE  CATFISH  171 

called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  his  father,  who 
stopped  the  night,  had  a  beautiful  "  speaking  voice." 
George  was  to  be  a  paying  guest  and  eat  his  dinner 
with  Mrs.  Dove  and  the  other  guest,  who  was  Mr. 
Mahon.  He  was  really  Captain  Mahon,  Mrs. 
Dove  explained,  but  he  didn't  like  the  title  used 
because  at  the  age  when  he  left  the  army  he  ought 
to  have  been  at  least  a  major.  He  had  been  in 
the  commissariat  department,  and  was  very  par- 
ticular about  his  breakfast. 

George  did  not  make  the  acquaintance  of  Mr. 
Mahon  that  evening,  because  his  father  took  him 
out  to  dinner  at  a  queer  place  under  some  railway 
arches,  where  they  sat  on  red  velvet  chairs,  and 
Mr.  Tracy  regretted  that  fieldfares  were  not  in 
season.  Afterward  they  went  to  the  Savoy 
Theater  to  see  The  Gondoliers.  George  had  never 
seen  anything  on  the  stage  more  poetical  than  the 
Barstow  pantomime,  and  he  thought  Tessa's  song 
But  Marco's  Quite  Another  Thing  the  very  heart's 
cry  of  passion. 

They  did  not  see  Mr.  Mahon  in  the  morning, 
because,  as  Mrs.  Dove  explained,  he  never  had  his 
breakfast  until  ten.  The  further  information  that 
he  couldn't  sleep  unless  his  bed  were  north  and 
south  struck  George  as  remarkable,  after  his  dream, 


172  THE  CATFISH 

and  he  wondered  who  was  Mr.  Mahon's  Eno  that 
he  couldn't  get  on  without.  After  breakfast  they 
went  to  the  bank  by  underground  from  Earl's 
Court  to  the  Mansion  House.  George  liked  the 
underground;  the  smell  of  it  seemed  to  go  with 
the  word  "  London."  The  bank  was  in  Thread- 
needle  Street,  and  at  first,  George  was  disappointed 
at  its  comparative  unimportance.  But  everything 
in  London  looked  rather  smaller  than  he  had  ex- 
pected. 

Mr.  Baldwin  was  as  bald  as  his  name  suggested, 
and  very  thin-lipped  and  precise,  though  he  had 
a  beautiful  rose  in  his  buttonhole.  He  said  there 
was  nothing  doing,  and  George  felt  that  it  was 
only  Mr.  Baldwin's  friendship  for  his  father  that 
induced  him  to  be  bothered  with  a  learner.  The 
terms  between  the  two  men  interested  him.  He 
had  not  expected  his  father  to  order  Mr.  Baldwin 
about,  because  his  father  was  always  kind  to 
subordinates;  but  it  really  seemed  as  if  the  London 
branch  belonged  to  Mr.  Baldwin.  Or,  rather,  the 
impression  George  received  was  that  if  all  the 
owners  of  the  bank  were  dead  and  forgotten,  Mr. 
Baldwin,  for  no  profit  of  his  own,  would  still  be 
managing  the  London  branch,  where  nothing  was 
doing.  When  Mr.  Tracy  asked  Mr.  Baldwin  if  he 


THE  CATFISH  173 

would  join  them  at  lunch  at  one  o'clock,  Mr.  Bald- 
win did  not  seem  a  bit  pleased.  But  George  saw 
that  his  father  liked  Mr.  Baldwin  and  had  great 
confidence  in  him. 

In  the  interval  before  lunch  they  went  to  the 
Royal  Exchange,  which,  from  the  apparently  aim- 
less though  mildly  excited  men  standing  about, 
George  supposed  to  do  for  commerce  what  the  bar 
did  for  government  and  the  higher  professions; 
and  to  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  where  he  was  a  little 
surprised  to  find  that  his  father  trod  reverently. 
On  consideration,  however,  he  decided  that  St. 
Paul's  was  not  quite  the  same  as  a  church.  It  was 
more  like  his  idea  of  a  pantheon,  and  perhaps  his 
father  did  reverence  to  the  noble  dead  of  every 
creed  and  period,  including  dead  Romans. 

They  met  Mr.  Baldwin  in  a  little  dark  place  with 
a  sawdusted  floor,  where  they  had  steaks,  without 
potatoes,  Cheddar  cheese,  and  bitter  beer.  George 
was  not  very  hungry,  and  Mr.  Baldwin  said,  not 
unkindly,  but  in  a  tone  of  advice : 

"  At  your  age  my  lunch  every  day  cost  me  two- 
pence." 

Mr.  Tracy  laughed  and  said :  "  Mr.  Spaull  will 
take  his  lunch  in  hand." 

George  had  already  learned  that  Mr.  Spaull  was 


174  THE  CATFISH 

the  cashier,  and  he  wondered  what  was  the  joke. 
Mr.  Baldwin,  with  great  scorn,  explained  that  Mr. 
Spaull  was  "  a  rabid  vegetarian ".  Then  they 
talked  about  gardening.  Mr.  Baldwin  lived  at 
Barking  —  which  seemed  to  suit  his  watchdog 
manner  —  and  grew  roses.  He  asked  Mr.  Tracy's 
advice  about  gardening,  as  George  felt  he  wouldn't 
have  done  about  banking,  though,  as  George  knew, 
his  father  was  not  an  authority  upon  flowers.  Mr. 
Baldwin  said  that  some  day  he  really  must  do  him- 
self the  pleasure  of  coming  down  to  Bourneside. 

The  atmosphere  of  the  place,  with  elderly  aproned 
waiters  answering  to  names  like  "  Henry "  and 
"  William,"  and  the  conversation,  gave  George  the 
word  he  wanted  to  describe  his  general  impression 
of  London.  It  was  all  very  homely;  much  more 
countrified  in  a  way  than  Barstow  or  St.  Piran's. 
After  lunch  they  just  had  time  to  go  to  West- 
minster Abbey,  which,  in  spite  of  its  greater  age, 
struck  George  as  much  less  old-fashioned  than  St. 
Paul's  —  "  Fiercer,  somehow,"  he  phrased  it  to 
himself  —  and  to  glance  at  the  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment, before  Mr.  Tracy  caught  his  train  at  Pad- 
dington. 

At  first  George  thought  that  he  would  not  like 
Mr.  Mahon.  He  was  a  rather  shaky,  fresh-colored 


THE  CATFISH  175 

old  gentleman  with  a  gray  mustache;  and,  par- 
ticularly in  profile,  all  the  lines  of  his  face  looked 
as  if  they  had  been  done  with  a  pair  of  compasses. 
George  was  displeased  at  Mr,  Mahon's  trembling 
gravity  about  his  dinner.  Every  now  and  then  he 
roused  himself  to  make  a  little  joke,  but  im- 
mediately relapsed  into  the  serious  business  of  his 
plate.  George's  headache,  kept  at  bay  by  the 
novelty  of  his  impressions,  now  rolled  out  into 
the  forecourt  of  his  brain;  and  when  Mrs.  Dove 
remarked  that  he  had  no  appetite,  and  Mr.  Mahon 
learned  that  he  had  dined  out  the  night  before,  the 
old  gentleman  said: 

"  Aha !  "  and  holding  up  a  fat  and  shaking  fore- 
finger, continued  impressively:  "Nemo  mortalium 
omnibus  horis  sapit"  as  if  he  thoroughly  under- 
stood the  situation. 

Mr.  Mahon  drank  gin  and  ginger-beer  at  dinner, 
and  afterward  remained  in  the  dining-room  with 
his  bottles  and  three  cigars  which  he  had  brought 
home  in  a  little  paper  bag.  In  the  drawing-room 
on  the  first  floor,  Mrs.  Dove  and  George  had  coffee 
-while  she  talked  to  him  about  Mr.  Mahon.  She 
was  afraid  that  sometimes  he  drank  too  much  gin 
and  ginger-beer  and  became  "  quite  stupid  " ;  but 
he  never  forgot  that  he  was  a  gentleman,  and  al- 


176  THE  CATFISH 

ways  came  into  the  drawing-room  at  ten  o'clock 
to  say  good  night.  He  spent  the  whole  day 
at  his  dub,  and  never  touched  anything  between 
breakfast  and  dinner. 

George  soon  lost  his  dislike  of  Mr.  Mahon.  He 
saw  that  he  was  an  idealist.  All  his  life  was  a 
serious  preparation  for  breakfast  and  dinner,  with 
self-denials  and  a  whole  drama  of  temptations 
resisted  at  the  club.  He  preserved  his  appetite 
as  a  woman  might  guard  her  virtue  in  difficult 
circumstances.  He  had  a  ritual  of  the  subject. 
His  "  Can't  I  tempt  you,  Mrs.  Dove  ?  "  as  he  un- 
corked the  gin  bottle,  was  a  formula  never  omitted, 
and  his  "  No,  no,  don't  tempt  me ! "  when  pressed 
to  a  second  helping  of  sweets  was  an  epitome  of 
roguish  discretion.  Sometimes  he  would  remember 
to  add:  "And  you  the  wife  of  a  medical  man!" 

It  was  a  long  time  before  George  had  an  oppor- 
tunity to  see  Mr.  Mahon  at  breakfast.  The  specta- 
cle was  really  worth  while.  With  a  napkin  tucked 
in  his  collar,  and  an  air  of  one  performing  a  reli- 
gious exercise,  the  old  gentleman  slowly  and 
tremblingly  absorbed  a  large  plate  of  porridge,  two 
mutton  chops,  an  egg  and  seven  pieces  of  toast  and 
marmalade. 

Besides  his  poetic  rather  than  sensual  regard  for 


THE  CATFISH  177 

his  appetite,  Mr.  Mahon  had  a  habit  which  attracted 
George.  Every  Sunday  morning  he  went  to  mass 
at  the  pro-cathedral  in  High  Street,  Kensington. 
It  seemed  to  George  quite  beautiful  that  an  old 
gentleman,  who  had  been  a  soldier,  and  now 
thought  of  nothing  but  his  breakfast  and  dinner, 
and  spent  all  his  days  at  a  club,  should  go  regularly 
to  mass. 

Altogether,  George  settled  down  very  comfort- 
ably in  London.  In  a  very  short  time  he  was  put- 
ting Mrs.  Dove's  cap  straight  for  her,  and  he  won 
her  heart  by  taking  notice  of  her  two  cats :  Tibby, 
who  was  black  and  a  born  aristocrat,  and  Mitty, 
who  was  tabby  and  plebeian  and  always  having 
kittens.  George  had  a  bed-sitting  room  behind  the 
drawing-room,  with  a  sycamore-tree  at  the  window, 
and  a  slanting  view  into  a  famous  Square,  in  which 
most  of  the  houses  were  draped  with  Virginia 
creeper,  reminding  him  of  Skye  terriers.  He  did 
not  very  often  sit  in  his  room.  Generally,  if  he 
did  not  go  out,  he  stayed  in  the  drawing-room  with 
Mrs.  Dove,  and  got  her  to  talk  about  her  foreign 
travels.  She  had  been  to  Paris,  and  up  the  Rhine, 
and  brought  back  a  portfolio  of  sketches.  Her  chef- 
d'oeuvre  was  a  red-chalk  drawing  of  Heidelberg 
Castle. 


178  THE  CATFISH 

George's  impression  of  the  homeliness  of  London 
deepened  with  further  acquaintance.  There  was 
the  homeliness  of  the  court,  which  not  only  Mrs. 
Dove's  well-informed  conversation  but  the  news- 
papers impressed  upon  him;  the  homeliness  of  the 
city  —  not  to  speak  of  the  minor  homeliness  of  the 
bank  —  and,  at  close  range,  the  particular  homeli- 
ness of  the  Square.  George  was  not  quite  clever 
enough  to  say  that  London  was  extravagantly 
provincial,  but  that  was  what  he  felt,  and  The 
Napoleon  of  Hotting  Hill  was  not  yet  written  to 
glorify  its  provincialism. 

The  homeliness  of  the  Square  enchanted  him. 
If  the  Square  had  not  a  voice,  it  had  a  corporate 
conscience  by  no  means  dependent  upon  communi- 
cation between  one  inhabitant  and  another.  Mrs. 
Dove  did  not  even  know  the  names  of  her  next- 
door  neighbors.  But  .every  house  was  sensitive 
to  the  opinion  of  the  others,  and  any  attempt  to 
strike  out  a  line  in  decoration  had  the  effect  of 
asserting  independence  —  the  surest  proof  of  in- 
stinctive solidarity.  When  a  large  public  event, 
or  a  royal  birth,  marriage,  or  death  was  in  the 
air,  speculation  as  to  what  the  Square  was  going 
to  do  about  it  was  evident  in  every  window.  If 
there  was  any  approach  to  articulate  expression  of 


THE  CATFISH  179 

the  common  will,  it  was  at  the  florist's  facing  the 
Earl's  Court  Road  —  the  only  shop  in  the  Square. 
The  "  Cardigan  Arms,"  flanking  one  corner  with 
red  and  gold,  was,  of  course,  only  concerned  with 
the  business  of  the  Mews  —  though  sometimes  a 
servant  might  carry  gossip. 

Even  the  people  who  waited  upon  the  special 
material  or  sentimental  needs  of  the  Square  had 
the  character  of  elected  officials  with  vested  rights 
and  prospects  of  a  pension.  It  was  not  "  a  "  but 
"  the "  cat's-meat,  muffin,  watercress,  organ  or 
lavender  man.  Every  Wednesday  morning  a  thin 
frock-coated  old  gentleman  walked  through  the 
Square  playing  upon  an  oboe.  He  never  played 
anything  but  "  Mother  in  the  Realms  of  Glory, 
is  there  Room  for  Mary  There  ?  "  and  George  felt 
that,  less  by  the  capacity  of  the  performer  than  by 
a  long  process  of  elimination,  the  tune  had  been 
decided  upon  as  best  suited  to  the  average  musical 
needs  of  the  neighborhood. 

Every  morning  George  went  to  the  bank  by 
underground  from  Earl's  Court  to  the  Mansion. 
House.  The  staff  at  the  bank  consisted  of  Mr. 
Baldwin,  the  manager,  Mr.  Spaull,  the  cashier,  Mr. 
Shelmerdine,  the  senior,  and  himself,  the  junior 
counter-clerk,  and  Goss,  the  porter.  With  Mr. 


i8o  THE  CATFISH 

Baldwin,  George  had  only  official  relations;  but 
Mr.  Spaull  and  Mr.  Shelmerdine  were  more  or  less 
intimately  associated  with  his  personal  affairs. 

Mr.  Spaull  was  a  very  thin,  middle-aged  man, 
with  wild  eyes  and  an  unprospering  beard.  His 
first  remark  to  George  was :  "  So  you  have  come 
to  this  accursed  place";  and  George  understood 
him  to  mean,  not  the  bank,  but  London.  Mr. 
Spaull  was  married  and  lived  at  Clapham,  where 
he  was  always  at  loggerheads  with  the  education 
and  medical  authorities  about  his  children.  Besides 
being  a  vegetarian,  he  was  an  anti-vaccinationist,  an 
anti-vivisectionist,  a  homeopathist  and  an  agnostic. 
In  after  years  George  recognized  that  Mr.  Spaull 
must  have  been  a  pioneer.  He  was  the  abstract 
garden  citizen  —  a  being  distinct  from  the  country- 
man in  that  he  needs  a  solid  mass  of  bricks  and 
mortar  to  gird  against.  But  in  those  days  there 
were  no  garden  cities,  or  other  organized  play- 
grounds for  Mr.  Spaull's  hobbies,  so  that  he  had 
the  distinction  of  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness. 
On  the  first  Saturday,  he  caught  George  by  the 
shoulder  and  said  fiercely,  "  Come  out  and  save 
your  soul ! "  He  took  him  to  Clapham,  fed  him 
on  lentils  and  tomatoes,  and  then  led  him  a  violent 
walk  across  the  common.  In  the  middle  of  a 


,THE  CATFISH  181 

lecture  upon  proteids  and  albuminoids  he  snatched 
off  his  hat,  and  gazing  fixedly  at  a  railway  embank- 
ment, said  something  about  "  God's  good  air." 

At  first  George  was  interested  in  Mr.  Spaull's 
ideas,  but,  though  he  continued  to  like  him,  after 
a  few  more  violent  excursions  in  God's  good  air, 
he  found  his  conversation  tiresome.  Unlike  Mr. 
Spaull,  George  was  inspired  by  London,  and  by 
this  time  he  had  discovered  that,  if  not  in  the 
material  at  any  rate  in  the  poetic  sense,  there  was 
more  of  God's  good  air  to  be  breathed  in  such  places 
as  Kensington  Gardens,  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields, 
Chelsea,  Tower  Hill,  and  even  Mile  End  Road, 
not  to  speak  of  the  enchanting  little  city  church- 
yards, than  in  the  environs  of  Clapham,  Also  he 
gathered  from  the  conversation  of  Mrs.  Spaull, 
an  anxious  woman  with  three  sickly,  spectacled 
little  girls,  that  the  basis  of  Mr.  Spaull's  revolt 
from  civilization  was  the  fact  that  the  poor  fellow 
was  consumptive.  Fortunately,  as  a  backslider, 
one  who  had  succumbed  to  the  "  soul-destroying 
influence  of  this  great  city,"  George  was  even  more 
enticing  to  Mr.  Spaull  than  as  a  convert;  and,  by 
keeping  in  opposition  and  cultivating  a  turn  for 
paradox,  he  remained  on  the  best  of  terms  with 
the  excited  cashier. 


182  THE  CATFISH 

Mr.  Shelmerdine  was  a  Blade.  Of  all  the  staff 
at  the  bank  George  liked  him  least,  though  he  was 
nearest  his  own  age.  He  was  the  only  one  who 
seemed  to  remember  that  George  was  the  son  of 
one  of  the  partners  —  an  attention  that  George 
instinctively  resented  as  much  as  he  appreciated 
its  neglect  by  Mr.  Baldwin  and  Mr.  Spaull.  Mr. 
Shelmerdine  frequented  music-halls  and  the  com- 
pany of  medical  students.  He  would  speak  of  "  a 
grand  tear  round  "  the  night  before,  and  of  having 
an  awful  head  on  him,  and  he  professed  to  despise 
his  occupation  and  to  wonder  at  George's  adopting 
the  same  when  he  might  have  had  a  "  high  old 
time  up  at  Oxford  " ;  but  George  observed  that  he 
did  his  work  very  well  and  was  appreciated  by 
Mr.  Baldwin  for  his  quickness  in  seeing  opportu- 
nities for  new  business.  He  had  an  irresistible 
way  with  chance  customers,  uncertain  where  to 
place  an  account.  Sometimes  George  went  to  a 
music-hall  with  Mr.  Shelmerdine,  whose  conduct 
was  noisy  rather  than  reprehensible,  and  once  to 
a  hospital  smoking  concert.  Here  he  was  hailed 
with  delight  by  Tom  Burchell,  who  was  now  at 
Guy's,  and  the  result  was  that  George  found  him- 
self responsible  for  Mr.  Shelmerdine,  instead  of 
the  other  way  about. 


THE  CATFISH  183 

George  liked  his  work  at  the  bank.  It  was  just 
difficult  enough  in  detail  to  keep  his  attention  oc- 
cupied without  making  any  real  demands  upon  his 
intelligence.  He  would  not  have  said  that  he  was 
deliberately  marking  time  in  order  to  save  his 
energy  for  something  else,  though  he  soon  recog- 
nized, with  respect  for  his  colleagues,  that  there 
was  an  essential  difference  between  the  way  he  did 
his  work  and  the  way  they  did  theirs.  His  con- 
science was  for  details,  theirs  for  the  general 
scheme.  Everything  to  him  was  equally  important, 
while  they  saw  exactly  what  mattered.  Mr.  Bald- 
win and  Mr.  Spaull  would  seem  astonishingly  care- 
less about  things  that  he  fussed  over,  but  every 
now  and  then  there  would  come  a  little  crisis  in 
which  no  sacrifice  of  time  and  trouble  was  too  much 
for  them.  As  he  saw,  it  was  not  the  fear  of  con- 
sequences or  the  desire  to  please  employers  that 
inspired  them ;  it  was  the  passionately  uncompromis- 
ing zeal  of  the  artist.  The  difference  between 
him  and  them  was  the  difference  between  the 
amateur  and  the  professional. 

Both  Mr.  Baldwin  and  Mr.  Spaull  were  pleased 
at  the  way  he  did  his  work.  They  said  he  was 
thorough  and  methodical.  It  was  the  gay  Mr. 
Shelmerdine  who  surprised,  and,  in  spite  of  the 


1 84  THE  CATFISH 

criticism,  pleased  him  by  defining  his  limitations. 

"  I  say,  old  man,"  he  said,  "  you're  all  right,  you 
know,  but,  if  you  don't  mind  my  saying  so,  you'll 
never  make  a  banker." 

"  No  ?  "  said  George  in  a  tone  of  very  consider- 
able amusement. 

"  Not  for  toffee,"  said  Mr.  Shelmerdine.  "  It's 
a  good  thing  you're  not  in  it  for  a  living."  For 
once  George  forgave  him  the  hint  that  he  was  the 
son  of  one  of  the  partners.  Mr.  Shelmerdine 
smoothed  his  wavy  black  hair,  arranged  his  bril- 
liant tie,  and  continued: 

"Look  here.  I'll  tell  you  your  history,  if  you 
were.  You'd  stick  here  until  I  was  made  chancel- 
lor of  the  exchequer  —  or  cleared  out  the  safe  — 
and  then  you'd  get  my  stool,  with  a  board  school 
pup  who  despised  you  to  break  in.  Then,  if  you 
made  no  serious  mistakes  —  and  I  don't  think  you 
would,  because  you're  careful  and  clear-headed  — 
after  about  three  years  you'd  be  sent  down  to 
Barstow  to  take  your  place  with  half  a  dozen  other 
good  old  stick-in-the-muds.  Once  there  you'd  wait 
for  somebody  to  die.  Every  now  and  then  your 
name  would  come  up.  '  Mr.  Tracy  ?  Oh,  yes ;  a 
careful  reliable  man,  but  no  initiative.'  One  after 
one  you'd  see  your  chances  go,  and  by  the  time 


THE  CATFISH  185 

you  were  forty,  and  bald,  you'd  be  glad  to  get  a 
managership  at  Little  Slocum,  with  jessamine  over 
the  name-board  and  quite  a  rush  on  market  day." 

George  laughed  at  the  picture,  though  he  recog- 
nized its  probable  truth.  Mr.  Shelmerdine  saw 
through  him  in  banking,  just  as  Darragh  did  in 
scholarship.  The  implications  were  different,  how- 
ever. He  was  not  expected  to  distinguish  himself 
in  banking.  Interested,  he  asked  Mr.  Shelmerdine 
exactly  what  did  make  a  banker. 

"Ah,  there  you  are,"  said  Mr.  Shelmerdine. 
"  Might  as  well  ask  me  what  makes  Bessie  Bellwood 
or  Charlie  Coburn.  You've  got  it,  or  you  haven't. 
Your  governor's  got  it  —  or  had  it  for  the  old  con- 
ditions. It's " —  he  gently  pummeled  his  large 
nose  in  the  effort  to  think  of  an  illustration — "  it's 
knowing  when  and  what  and  why  —  all  at  the  same 
time.  It's  knowing  just  when  to  let  the  tidy  little 
routine  go  hang  and  put  your  shirt  on  what  looks 
like  the  off-chance.  Even  old  Baldwigs  hasn't  got 
quite  that.  What  he  doesn't  know  about  what  is 
isn't  worth  knowing.  It's  what  isn't —  Oh,  I 
can  smell  it !  " 

George  knew  that  Mr.  Shelmerdine  was  not 
bragging,  nor  was  he  greatly  disturbed  at  the  de- 
structive criticism  of  himself.  He  was  at  least 


i86  THE  CATFISH 

learning  "  what  is  "  and  the  way  the  tide  of  money 
ebbed  and  flowed.  Moreover,  though  as  yet  he 
would  hardly  trust  the  feeling,  he  began  to  suspect 
that  his  detachment  gave  him  certain  advantages. 
Even  Mr.  Shelmerdine,  though  he  felt  —  or  smelt 
—  every  fluctuation  in  the  tide  of  money,  and,  as 
his  guarded  remark  about  Mr.  Tracy  showed,  was 
aware  that  the  general  movement  was  not  the  same 
as  it  had  been,  did  not  appear  to  notice  the  cosmic 
changes  that  were  reflected  in  the  tide. 

George  could  not  pretend  to  understand  the 
changes,  but  he  felt  them.  As  he  extended  his 
knowledge  of  London,  he  began  to  see  the  reason 
of  what  he  had  called  homeliness.  London  in 
general  had  altered,  but  London  in  particular  was 
not  aware  of  it.  The  city,  Westminster  —  and 
even  such  minor  provinces  as  the  Square  —  pre- 
served their  own  traditions.  The  traditions  no 
longer  corresponded  with  the  facts.  Most  of  the 
institutions  of  London  were  frankly  survivals,  and 
St.  Paul's  looked  old-fashioned  because  it  really 
expressed  the  city.  Meanwhile,  what  Mr.  Tracy 
called  the  new  race,  "  very  sharp  and  able,"  and, 
from  what  George  could  make  out,  chiefly  com- 
posed of  Americans  and  Jews,  was  gradually  in- 
vading London  and  exploiting  its  homeliness. 


THE  CATFISH  187 

London  was.  uneasily  aware  of  the  new  race,  but, 
instead  of  trying  to  absorb  it,  either  grumbled  or 
made  clumsy  attempts  to  imitate  the  methods  of 
the  invaders, 

From  George's  position,  he  heard  most  of  the 
grumbling.  If  he  had  been  asked  to  put  his  general 
impression  into  words,  he  would  have  said  that 
commerce,  London's  proper  game,  unless  it  were 
frankly  old-fashioned,  was  disappearing  in  finance. 
People  used  to  make  things  and  then  sell  them  in 
order  to  make  money;  now  they  were  trying  to 
make  money  out  of  money,  and  things  had  become 
only  a  means  to  that  end.  The  comparatively  few 
people  who  continued  to  make  things  for  their  own 
sake  were  doing  so  at  an  enormous  disadvantage  — 
chiefly  because  they  did  not  make  the  things  that 
other  people  really  wanted.  Then  they  either  grum- 
bled at  the  change  in  taste,  or  spent  their  energy  in 
inventing  all  sorts  of  ingenious  ways  of  inducing 
people  to  buy  things  that  they  did  not  really  want. 
Hence  the  enormous  increase  of  advertising.  From 
conversations  with  customers  over  the  counter, 
George  was  led  to  believe  that  inducing  people  to 
buy  what  they  did  not  want  had  become  the  accepted 
meaning  of  good  business. 

His  own  immediate  concern,  of  course,  was  with 


1 88  THE  CATFISH 

finance;  but  he  could  not  help  seeing  past  it.  In- 
deed, he  was  beginning  to  feel  that  the  peculiarity 
which  distinguished  him  from  most  other  people 
was  that  he  did  see  past  the  legitimate  occupation 
of  the  moment.  He  did  not  yet  claim  it  as  a  virtue ; 
on  the  contrary,  he  saw  that,  so  far,  it  had  kept 
him  from  doing  anything  really  well.  Until  he  got 
hold  of  something  that  he  could  not  see  past,  some 
game  that  could  be  played  indefinitely  on  its  own 
lines  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  his  faculties,  he  could 
not  really  put  his  weight  into  it.  Meanwhile,  as 
Darragh  said,  he  was  banking  himself  —  with  all 
sorts  of  accumulating  interest  in  the  way  of  ob- 
servations. It  amused  him  to  think  that,  just  as 
the  business  of  banking  was  supposed  not  to  injure 
social  prestige,  so  it  seemed  not  to  hinder  the  har- 
monious development  of  one's  general  powers.  It 
did  not,  like  scholarship,  commit  you  to  exhausting 
effort  in  one  direction  —  which  might  be  the  wrong 
one. 


CHAPTER  X 

ONE  great  advantage  of  the  bank  to  George 
was  that  it  acted  as  a  sort  of  magnet  to 
people  from  his  own  part  of  the  country.  George 
was  not  homesick,  but  he  was  very  loyal  to  the 
place  of  his  birth.  He  professed  to  be  able  to  pick 
out  West-country  people  in  the  streets  of  London, 
saying  that  they  looked  larger  and  cleaner  than 
everybody  else.  Few  of  the  regular  customers  at 
the  bank  were  more  than  Barstovians  by  descent 
—  if  they  were  Barstovians  at  all  —  and  some  had 
never  been  to  Barstow,  but  seldom  a  day  passed 
without  a  man  or  woman  coming  in  who  belonged 
to  the  West  and  was  only  in  London  on  business 
or  pleasure.  To  George  they  were  always  friends, 
and  he  generally  managed  to  add  to  the  necessary 
formalities  and  remarks  upon  the  weather  some 
question  about  West-country  affairs.  Mr.  Shel- 
merdine  complained  that  he  was  far  more  anxious 
to  talk  turnips  than  to  get  business.  "  I  believe 
you'd  honor  anything  with  a  Barstow  accent,"  he 
said. 

189 


THE  CATFISH 

One  morning  a  lady  came  in  who  looked  more 
like  Paris  than  Barstow.  She  was  not  young,  but 
remarkably  handsome.  George  instinctively  left 
her  to  Mr.  Shelmerdine,  who  as  instinctively  ar- 
ranged his  tie.  The  lady  walked  up  to  the  counter, 
and  resting  the  tips  of  her  fingers  upon  it,  coolly 
compared  one  young  man  with  the  other.  Then, 
with  a  little  almost  ironical  bow  to  Mr.  Shelmer- 
dine, she  turned  to  George. 

"It's  you  I  want,"  she  said;  "you  must  be  the 
son  of  Walter  Tracy,  though  you're  not  much  like 
him." 

George  confessed  his  paternity,  and  the  lady  said  : 

"  I'm  Mrs.  Glanville." 

The  name  conveyed  nothing  to  George,  and  be- 
fore he  could  think  of  something  polite,  she  went 
on: 

"Of  course  you  wouldn't.  Nor  would  your 
father,  for  the  matter  of  that.  Tell  him  you've 
been  to  see  Jane  Mario w — that  is  if  you'll  come 
on  Sunday?  I  had  your  address,  but  I've  lost  it." 

George  said  he  should  be  delighted,  but  he  looked 
so  confused  that  Mrs.  Glanville  laughed  outright. 

"  It's  quite  proper,"  she  said.  "  I  knew  your 
father  —  oh,  years  ago.  How  is  he,  and  has  he 
saved  England  with  cabbages  ?  " 


THE  CATFISH  191 

George  said  that  his  father  was  very  well,  and 
tried  to  think  of  a  witty  retort  to  the  question 
about  cabbages,  which  he  recognized  to  be  cheeky; 
but  before  he  could  do  so  Mrs.  Glanville  had  recov- 
ered herself  and  said : 

"  Never  mind.  On  Sunday,  then,  at  four-thirty ; 
5,  Devonport  Terrace,  Hyde  Park  —  close  to  Lan- 
caster Gate.  You'd  better  put  it  down." 

Half  amused  and  half  resentful,  George  obeyed, 
and  then,  shaking  hands  with  a  quick  little  squeeze 
that  completely  demoralized  him,  the  spirited  lady 
acknowledged  Mr.  Shelmerdine's  homage  of  the 
eye,  and  moved  to  the  door.  Through  the  blind 
George  observed  that  Goss,  the  porter,  put  her  into 
a  very  smart-looking  carriage. 

"  Widow,  money,  rides  in  the  Row,  eye  for 
a  good-looking  young  man,"  said  Mr.  Shelmer- 
dine  concisely  and  not  uncomplacently.  "  Always 
thought  your  respected  governor  had  been  a  bit  of 
a  boy-oh." 

"  Shut  up ! "  said  George  good-humoredly.  In 
passing,  he  conceded  the  justice  of,  at  any  rate,  one 
item  in  Mr.  Shelmerdine's  summary,  and  wished  he 
had  his  coolness.  Mrs.  Glanville  had  the  carriage 
of  a  horsewoman.  "  She  takes  a  lot  for  granted," 
he  said  loftily. 


192  THE  CATFISH 

"Rats!"  said  Mr.  Shelmerdine.  "You'll  be 
there  on  Sunday.  Wish  I  had  your  luck." 

In  the  interval,  George  tried  to  persuade  himself 
that  he  was  not  curious  about  Mrs.  Glanville.  He 
wondered  how  she  had  got  his  address  —  which  she 
had  lost.  He  had  never  heard  his  father  speak  of 
Jane  Marlow,  though  that  was  nothing,  because 
he  seldom  spoke  of  his  early  days.  Mrs.  Glanville 
would  be  a  few  years  younger  than  his  father,  he 
supposed.  He  dismissed  the  suggestion  conveyed 
by  Mr.  Shelmerdine's  impudent  remark.  Jane  Mar- 
low  might  have  been  in  love  with  his  father,  but 
he  felt  instinctively  that  she  wouldn't  have  said 
cheeky  things  about  a  man  who  had  been  in  love 
with  her.  Evidently,  though,  his  father's  passion 
for  land  was  an  old  story. 

On  Sunday,  when  he  presented  himself  at  5, 
Devonport  Terrace,  his  curiosity  about  Mrs.  Glan- 
ville was  diverted,  because  the  first  person  she  in- 
troduced him  to  was  Mary  Festing. 

"  I  should  have  explained,"  said  Mrs.  Glanville, 
"  only  the  good-looking  Jew  boy  undid  me,  that  it 
was  Mary  who  got  me  your  address.  She  got  it 
from  the  boy  Darragh  —  you  must  bring  him 
here." 


THE  CATFISH  193 

It  was  all  too  close-packed  for  immediate  com- 
prehension. For  one  thing,  it  hadn't  occurred  to 
George  that  Mr.  Shelmerdine  was  a  Jew,  though 
now  he  recognized  the  probability,  and  marveled  at 
Mrs.  Glanville's  cleverness.  Then,  apparently, 
Mrs.  Glanville  didn't  know  Darragh  yet,  and  so 
Mary  must  have  talked  about  himself  to  Mrs.  Glan- 
ville. The  result  of  his  confused  though  rapid 
reflections  was  that  he  held  Mary  Festing's  cool 
slim  hand  a  moment  longer  than  he  might  other- 
wise have  done,  and  said,  with  almost  injured 
impulsiveness,  "  You  again !  " 

She  laughed,  and  the  sound  of  her  laugh  —  low, 
melancholy,  and  yet  triumphant  —  made  him  take 
her  in,  and  it  was  as  if  the  laugh  had  sketched  her. 
Then  he  was  glad  that  he  had  spoken  as  he  had, 
for  he  knew  that  he  could  never  again  speak  with 
the  same  detachment  to  the  slender  girl  —  the  sickle 
moon  in  her  hollow  stoop  and  silveriness  —  who 
now,  as  if  shy  at  his  glance,  moved  away  and  left 
him  to  Mrs.  Glanville. 

While  he  talked  to  that  lady,  George  was  oddly 
divided  between  pleasure  and  resentment.  "It's  a 
trap,"  he  said  to  himself;  "she  was  sitting  there 
like  a  spider  for  a  fly."  For  with  belated  percep- 


I94  THE  CATFISH 

tion  he  was  now  aware  that  Mary's  narrow  eyes 
had  been  on  him  the  moment  he  entered  the  room. 
"What  does  she  want?"  he  said  to  himself. 

"  So,"  said  Mrs.  Glanville,  sinking  to  a  couch 
and  taking  him  down  with  a  gesture,  "  you're  Wal- 
ter Tracy's  son.  But  that's  neither  here  nor  there. 
I  love  young  men." 

Three  of  her  young  men  were  present,  now  en- 
gaged with  Mary  Festing  and  a  "  flapper  ",  whom 
George  understood  to  be  Miss  Glanville. 

The  effect  of  Mary  Festing's  presence  upon 
George  was  to  give  him  extraordinary  ease  with 
Mrs.  Glanville;  and  accepting  her  dismissal  of  his 
father  as  an  invitation  to  be  cheeky,  he  rattled  on 
about  Cardigan  Square  and  his  cock-sure  impres- 
sions of  London.  Mrs.  Glanville  listened  with  huge 
appreciation,  though  her  occasional  side-glance 
might  have  meant  that  she  could  not  quite  reconcile 
him  with  a  previous  description.  That  only  pleased 
him,  though  he  was  not  clearly  conscious  of  a  de- 
sire to  show  Mary  Festing  that  she  was  wrong 
about  him.  He  felt  that  he  had  established  the 
right  relations  with  Mrs.  Glanville  from  the  begin- 
ning, and  half  wished  that  Mr.  Shelmerdine  were 
there  to  hear  him  talk. 

"  Oh,    you're    perfectly    gorgeous !  "    said    Mrs. 


THE  CATFISH  195 

Glanville,  when  he  gave  her  a  chance,  in  a  tone 
that  might  have  meant  anything  — "  egregious,"  for 
example. 

George  laughed  and  said: 

"  Now  you  know  all  about  me,  it's  only  fair  — " 

"  Oh,  you  must  ask  your  father,"  said  Mrs.  Glan- 
ville.  "  It's  enough  for  you  that  I'm  a  lone  widow, 
with  a  daughter  just  married,  and  a  son  in  the 
navy  quite  big  enough  to  keep  you  in  order." 

Her  tone,  combined  with  what  she  had  said  be- 
fore, convinced  him  that  she  had  found  his  father 
as  amusing  as  she  seemed  to  find  him.  But  he  was 
not  now  greatly  curious  about  Mrs.  Glanville;  she 
was  good  fun,  and  she  seemed  to  attract  pleasant 
people.  What  he  really  wanted  to  know  was  where 
Mary  Resting  came  in.  Evidently,  from  her  dress, 
she  was  not  stopping  in  the  house.  But  informa- 
tion about  her  was  not  forthcoming,  and  nothing 
would  have  induced  him  to  ask  questions. 

The  house  indicated  prosperity,  if  not  wealth, 
and  a  turn  for  hospitality.  There  were  plenty  of 
books  and  magazines  about,  and  the  pictures  were 
of  a  sort  that  George  supposed  to  be  "  good " ; 
but  comparing  the  atmosphere  with  that  of  Mrs. 
Darragh's  cottage,  he  would  have  said  that  culture 
was  here  taken  in  the  stride  of  a  general  alertness 


196  THE  CATFISH 

to  life  rather  than  indulged  as  an  instinct.  Look- 
ing at  Mrs.  Glanville,  he  guessed  that  clothes  in- 
terested her  more  than  anything ;  he  had  never  seen 
anybody  dressed  quite  so  frankly.  He  could  not 
have  said  what  the  difference  was,  but  by  compari- 
son, other  women  he  had  noticed  seemed  to  want 
to  hide  the  fact  that  they  had  the  shapes  of  women. 
Mrs.  Glanville's  conversation  seemed  to  go  with 
her  clothes;  it  was  not  that  she  said  anything  out- 
rageous, but  she  talked  easily  about  things  that,  in 
the  mixed  company  he  was  accustomed  to,  were 
tacitly  avoided.  She  talked  about  music-halls,  for 
example,  and  told  him  a  lot  about  a  Spanish  dancer 
he  had  lately  seen.  If  he  had  thought  it  out,  he 
would  have  said  that  people  like  Mrs.  Glanville  could 
talk  about  bodies  with  as  little  embarrassment  as 
people  like  Darragh  talked  about  souls.  It  was  a 
new  experience  to  him,  and  he  liked  it. 

He  gathered  that  one  of  the  young  men  was  an 
artist  and  the  other  two  were  Oxford  undergradu- 
ates. He  had  been  told  their  names  on  introduction, 
but  the  consciousness  of  Mary,  and  his  revolt  from 
it  into  sharpening  his  wits  against  Mrs.  Glanville's, 
had  prevented  his  taking  them  in.  From  the 
noise  they  made,  the  young  men  seemed  to  be  hav- 
ing a  good  time  with  Mary  and  Miss  Glanville, 


THE  CATFISH  197 

whose  name  he  understood  to  be  Dolly.  Attracted 
and  amused  as  he  was  by  Mrs.  Glanville,  George 
could  not  help  glancing  in  their  direction;  he  was 
curious  to  know  what  Oxford  men  were  like,  for 
one  thing.  The  result  was  that  Mrs.  Glanville  said : 
"  But  of  course  you  want  to  talk  to  Mary." 

He  wanted  nothing  of  the  sort,  but  he  was  not 
going  to  funk  it.  His  approach  altered  the  bal- 
ance of  the  group,  and  after  a  violent  appeal  from 
both  sides  —  Dolly  and  one  of  the  undergraduates 
were  upholding  common-sense  against  imagination 
—  he  was  relegated  with  Mary  to  the  unspeakable 
ignominy  of  sitting  on  the  fence. 

George  was  acutely  aware  of  the  lurkingness  of 
Mary.  Dressed  in  cool  gray  linen,  in  a  manner 
that  he  supposed  to  be  artistic,  she  curved  into  her 
chair,  with  hollow  hands  idle  in  her  lap.  The  still- 
ness of  her  made  him  aggressive,  and  he  said 
bluntly : 

"  Well,  what  are  you  doing?  " 

Mary  said  that  she  was  writing.  He  felt,  some- 
how7, that  it  gave  her  an  unfair  advantage,  though 
he  couldn't  have  said  why.  Half  inclined  to  say: 
"  You  were  quite  wrong ;  I've  never  written  any 
poetry,"  he  expressed  the  same  idea  by  saying, 
rather  defiantly,  "  I'm  banking." 


198  THE  CATFISH 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  said  Mary,  and  that  made  him 
feel  gratuitous. 

"How  are  the  Darraghs?"  he  said  in  a  tone 
that  was  meant  to  imply  indifference  to  the  subject. 

Mary  said  that  they  were  very  well.  "  Miles  is 
coming  up  to  London  at  Christmas  to  go  to  the 
Slade,"  she  added. 

He  didn't  know  what  the  Slade  was,  but  he  was 
not  going  to  betray  curiosity,  so  he  nodded  intelli- 
gently and  said : 

"Is  Mrs.  Darragh  coming  up,  too?" 

Mary  said:  "No,  Miles  is  going  into  rooms." 
She  volunteered  the  information  that  she  had  rooms 
in  King's  Road,  Chelsea.  George  tried  not  to  look 
interested,  but  without  success.  The  idea  o<f  a 
young  woman  living  alone  in  London  was  new  to 
him,  though  he  had  heard  of  such  things  as  a  symp- 
tom of  independence.  He  could  not  help  looking 
respectful  as  he  said : 

"  I  thought  your  people  lived  in  London." 

"So  they  do,"  said  Mary,  notx  without  a  certain 
complacency,  "  but  we  get  on  better  apart." 

He  was  not  quite  old  enough  to  appreciate  the 
fact  that  Mary  had  not  yet  outgrown  the  conscious- 
ness of  her  independence.  The  effect  of  her  state- 
ment was  to  make  him  want  to  swagger  in  his  turn, 


THE  CATFISH  199 

and  he  began  to  talk  in  a  man-of-the- world  way 
about  the  city.  He  was  hoping  that  Mary  would 
ask  him  why  he  had  given  up  Oxford;  he  would 
have  liked  an  opportunity  to  say  something  compas- 
sionate about  the  two  undergraduates,  who  were 
still,  so  to  speak,  under  discipline.  But  Mary  was, 
or  pretended  to  be,  interested  in  the  city.  George 
knew  all  the  time  that  when  it  came  to  bluffing  he 
was  no  match  for  her.  At  twenty-one  she  was  a 
woman,  while  he,  with  every  assertion  about  his 
masculine  responsibilities  and  amusements,  felt  the 
maternal  supervision  of  Mrs.  Dove.  As  if  to  rub 
in  the  difference  between  them,  Mary  said: 

"How's  your  mother?" 

That  took  him  unawares,  and  he  had  a  vivid 
picture  of  the  scene  in  the  nursery  at  Bourneside. 
He  felt  himself  blushing  as  he  said  that  his  mother 
•was  very  well.  It  seemed  to  him  indelicate  of 
Mary  to  speak  of  his  mother.  Apart  from  that, 
the  reference  reminded  him  of  the  present  unsatis- 
factory terms  between  his  mother  and  himself. 
Mary  could  know  nothing  about  that,  he  had  not 
even  told  Darragh ;  but  he  felt  that  she  was  looking 
at  him  curiously.  Though  they  had  not  met  for 
ten  years,  there  was  an  obscure  connection  in  his 
mind  between  Mary  and  his  mother  that  he  could 


200  THE  CATFISH 

not  analyze.  He  became  shy  and  silent,  and  pres- 
ently Mary  rose  to  go. 

George  knew  that  he  wanted  to  go  with  her. 
Why,  it  was  not  clear;  he  wanted  to  have  it  out 
with  her,  to  assert  himself  somehow.  But  he  could 
not  pluck  up  courage  to  say,  "  I'll  come  with 
you,"  in  the  presence  of  other  people,  and  so  he 
let  her  go  away  with  the  young  artist,  Mr.  Lindrop, 
who,  he  understood,  also  lived  in  Chelsea. 

When  Mary  said  good-by  to  Mrs.  Glanville, 
George  caught  himself  listening  against  his  will  for 
any  remark  that  would  throw  light  on  her  circum- 
stances. He  was  curious  to  know  whether  or  not 
she  had  come  with  Mr.  Lindrop,  though  he  told 
himself  that  it  was  not  his  business.  But  Mrs. 
Glanville  only  said,  "  Well,  at  any  rate,  you've 
had  a  good  tea,"  and  Mary  said,  "  Oh,  Mrs.  Pin- 
ney  stuffs  me  like  a  pig  " ;  a  remark  that  gave  George 
peculiar  comfort,  less  on  account  of  the  stuffing 
than  because  it  seemed  to  him  satisfactory  that  Mrs. 
Glanville  should  know  who  Mrs.  Pinney  was. 

After  Mary  had  gone,  Mrs.  Glanville  told  him 
that  her  poems  and  short  stories  were  attracting 
attention,  and  one  of  the  undergraduates  looked 
very  wise  and  said:  "Oh,  she's  the  real  thing." 
George  would  not  ask  where  Mary's  poems  and 


THE  CATFISH  201 

short  stories  came  out,  but  he  made  a  mental  note 
of  the  magazines  that  were  lying  about  the  room. 
He  felt  that  he  could  not  rise  to  Mrs.  Glanville 
now,  and  he  declined  her  invitation  to  stop  to 
supper,  though  he  promised  to  come  again.  Mrs. 
Glanville  was  always  at  home  on  Sunday. 

George  walked  across  Kensington  Gardens  in  a 
mixture  of  emotions.  He  felt  as  if  he  had  suddenly 
grown  up.  The  idea  that  he  might  be  in  love  with 
Mary  Festing  made  him  blush,  and  he  said  indig- 
nantly, aloud,  "  I'm  not " ;  very  much  as  he  had 
denied  the  accusation  of  writing  poetry,  in  the 
nursery  at  Bourneside.  No,  he  argued,  it  was  not 
that,  but  Mary  Festing  reminded  him  that  he  was 
now  a  man.  From  this  time  he  began  to  keep  Mrs. 
Dove  a  little  at  a  distance,  and  to  sit  in  his  own 
room  of  an  evening.  It  was  absurd,  he  thought, 
that  a  fellow  of  his  age  should  not  be  in  proper 
diggings. 

Whether  or  not  because  Mary  had  spoken  of  his 
mother,  and  so  reminded  him  of  home,  he  began 
to  be  bothered  by  the  Bourne.  Below  the  traffic 
of  the  street  he  heard  the  older  thunder  of  the 
Waterfall.  Then  he  happened  to  read  somewhere 
that  the  Serpentine  was  a  relic  of  the  Westbourne. 
T'.'.at  gave  him  a  clue.  Undoubtedly  the  hidden 


202  THE  CATFISH 

stream  passed  under  Devonport  Terrace.  In  Corn- 
wall he  had  been  told  about  "  dowsers,"  and  their 
mysterious  faculty  for  tracing  water.  He  won- 
dered if  he  had  this  faculty.  Then  the  name 
"  Westbourne  Grove "  jumped  into  his  mind  with 
occult  significance.  He  dreamed  of  the  Grove; 
curved  like  the  sickle  moon,  with  hollow  hands  idle 
in  her  lap,  Mary  floated  past  the  tops  of  the  fir- 
trees  and,  moonlike,  swayed  some  tide  in  his  heart, 
while  somewhere  his  mother  was  crying  happily. 
He  said  to  himself  that  if  he  had  met  Mary  any- 
where but  in  Devonport  Terrace,  over  the  hidden 
Westbourne,  he  would  not  have  been  troubled  in 
this  way.  But  all  the  time  he  knew  that  the  trouble 
was  connected  somehow  with  the  fulfilment  of  his 
nature. 

George  continued  to  go  to  Devonport  Terrace. 
He  liked  Mrs.  Glanville;  she  gave  him  a  feeling 
of  security  that  was  not  the  security  of  ignorance.' 
On  one  side  she  was  delightfully  worldly,  and  on 
the  other  side  she  understood  Mary.  Sometimes 
Mary  was  there,  and  supported  by  Mrs.  Glan- 
ville's  jolly  presence,  he  could  meet  her  without 
fear.  He  liked  to  see  her  sitting  there  in  her  lurk- 
ing attitude,  as  if  listening  to  the  hidden  stream, 
and  if  ever  she  threatened  to  become  embarrassing 


THE  CATFISH  203 

there  was  Mrs.  Glanville  to  back  him  up  easily  in 
his  bluffing. 

As  against  Mary,  he  and  Mrs.  Glanville  took  the 
side  of  the  world.  Mrs.  Glanville's  husband  had 
been  a  stock-broker;  she  knew  all  about  business, 
and  had  traveled  a  great  deal,  with  an  intelligent 
appreciation  of  the  romantic  side  of  things,  but 
a  healthy  enjoyment  of  the  advantages  of  money. 
She  remembered  the  churches,  but  also  the  good 
hotels.  On  the  other  hand,  as  the  daughter  of 
a  Somerset  squire,  she  was  well  up  in  the  associa- 
tions of  outdoor  life,  and  took  a  keen  interest  in 
sport.  Mr.  Shelmerdine  was  quite  right  about  her 
riding  in  the  Row.  It  was  in  Somerset  that  she 
had  known  Mr.  Tracy.  They  had  hunted  together. 
George  never  got  to  the  bottom  of  the  relation  be- 
tween them.  Whenever  he  talked  about  his  father 
to  Mrs.  Glanville,  she  began  to  laugh,  and  once 
she  said :  "  He's  got  a  bee  in  his  bonnet,  my  dear." 
The  way  she  said  it,  with  a  mixture  of  amusement 
and  affectionate  regret,  made  him  feel  how  splen- 
didly he  had  taken  in  Mrs.  Glanville  about  himself. 
Evidently  she  never  suspected  his  queer  feelings 
about  Mary. 

He  had  written  to  his  father  about  Mrs.  Glanville 
after  her  first  visit  to  the  bank.     His  father  wrote 


204  THE  CATFISH 

in  return :  "  How  kind  of  Mrs.  Glanville  to  look 
you  up.  I  remember  her  well;  you  will  find  her  a 
delightful  companion.  Please  give  her  my  kindest 
regards."  George  got  the  impression  that  his  father 
must  have  bluffed  Jane  Marlow  very  much  as  he 
himself  was  bluffing  Mary  Festing,  only  in  a  differ- 
ent direction. 

Dolly  Glanville,  who  was  seventeen,  was  a  great 
ally  against  Mary.  She  was  no  end  of  a  swell  at 
mathematics,  and  was  going  up  to  Newnham  when 
she  left  school.  Then  there  was  her  newly-married 
sister,  Mrs.  Raymond,  who  sometimes  came  in  with 
her  doctor  husband  from  Wimpole  Street.  The 
Raymonds  had  all  the  knowingness  of  a  young 
happily-married  couple,  intensified  by  a  medical  at- 
mosphere. Between  them  all  they  kept  Mary  in 
a  minority  of  what  they  called  soul  fulness,  and 
held  her  up  to  affectionate  derision.  George,  who 
felt  that  in  this  company  he  could  somehow  have 
it  out  with  Mary  Festing  and  still  keep  his  own 
confidence,  joined  in  the  chaffing.  Mary  took  him 
on  his  own  terms,  but  occasionally,  as  if  to  remind 
him  of  discretion,  she  would  look  at  him  out  of 
her  narrow  eyes  and  quietly  say  something  that 
got  home  upon  the  self  he  concealed.  It  was  as 
if  she  had  a  key  to  the  side-door  of  his  nature. 


THE  CATFISH  205 

He  resented  her  possession  of  it,  and  said  to  him- 
self that  it  would  be  all  right  when  Darragh  came 
to  London.  Then  he  could  push  Mary  off  on 
Darragh  and  still  enjoy,  as  he  undoubtedly  did 
enjoy,  the  strange  thrill  of  her  company.  Darragh 
would  bring  out,  as  the  Glanvilles  did  not,  and  he 
only  at  peril  to  himself,  the  side  of  Mary  that  against 
his  will  he  wanted.  He  could  not  work  it  out 
clearly,  but  it  seemed  to  him  that  Darragh  would 
act  as  a  sort  of  lightning-conductor. 

What  Mrs.  Glanville  told  him  about  Mary  seemed 
to  confirm  his  early  ideas  about  the  parentage  of 
Indian  children.  When  he  said  that  he  wondered 
that  Mary's  parents  let  her  live  alone,  Mrs.  Glan- 
ville said:  "  Which  of  them?  "  adding,  with  great 
contempt,  "  They're  glad  enough  to  be  rid  of  the 
responsibility.  They've  got  their  own  affairs." 
George  did  not  pursue  the  subject,  though,  remem- 
bering what  Mrs.  Glanville  had  said  about  a  good 
tea,  he  was  glad  to  hear  that  Mary's  parents  gave 
her  an  allowance.  He  had  already  learned  that 
Mr.  Lindrop  was  a  person  of  no  account  so  far 
as  Mary  was  concerned.  Mary's  relation  to  the 
Glanvilles  was  easily  explained;  she  and  Dolly  had 
been  schoolfellows. 

George  read  some  of  Mary's  poems  and  short 


2o6  THE  CATFISH 

stories.  They  went  with  his  idea  of  her  person- 
ality; they  seemed  to  lurk  for  you  both  in  the 
pages  of  magazines  and  in  your  mind  afterward. 
The  poems  were  generally  about  landscape  or 
weather,  and  the  stories  about  children.  As  George 
put  it,  they  told  you  nothing,  but  let  out  a  lot, 
and  when  you  tried  to  say  what  it  was,  you  couldn't, 
except  in  the  words  of  the  poems  or  the  stories. 
Mary  made  him  think  about  words;  he  found  him- 
self repeating:  "Mary  Festing,  Chelsea."  The 
addition  of  the  last  word  intensified  the  feeling 
he  had  on  hearing  Mary's  name  for  the  first  time. 
It  made  her  more  remote  than  ever,  and  yet 
strangely  persistent,  like  the  sighing  of  wind  in 
tree-tops  on  a  summer  afternoon,  or  the  far-off 
murmur  of  the  sea. 

Devonport  Terrace  became  great  fun  in  George's 
relations  with  Mr.  Shelmerdine.  The  latter  was 
not  unduly  inquisitive,  but  George's  grown-upness 
could  not  escape  so  sharp  an  observer.  It  amused 
George  to  think  how  far  Mr.  Shelmerdine  was  from 
the  truth  when  he  made  knowing  remarks  about 
Miss  Glanville,  for  a  protective  instinct  had  made 
George  play  up  to  him  by  volunteering  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  Glanville  household.  George  would  not 
have  admitted  that  he  was  in  love  with  Mary  Fest- 


THE  CATFISH  207 

ing,  but  he  knew  that  the  lurking  idea  of  her  in 
his  mind  must  be  surrounded  by  elaborate  make- 
believe  about  other  people.  He  felt  that  he  scored 
over  Mr.  Shelmerdine  as  a  man  of  the  world  by 
the  discovery  of  Mr.  Shelmerdine's  own  little  secret. 
Tactful  allusions  had  confirmed  the  truth  of  Mrs. 
Glanville's  description. 

In  September,  George  went  home  for  a  holiday. 
It  was  then  that  he  recognized  how  he  had  grown 
up  in  the  last  few  months,  particularly  in  his  ideas 
about  women.  Even  Amelia  was  now  surrounded 
by  an  atmosphere  of  mystery.  Her  little  room  over 
the  front  door  had  become  for  him  the  most  sacred 
part  of  the  house.  There  was  a  rose  at  one  side 
of  the  window  and  a  jasmine  at  the  other,  so  that 
the  room  had  all  the  character  of  a  bower,  and  a 
goldfinch  built  regularly  in  a  little  cypress  on  the 
lawn  immediately  opposite  the  window.  All  this 
now  struck  George  as  beautifully  appropriate, 
though  he  had  never  thought  about  it  before,  par- 
ticularly when  Amelia  told  him  that  in  June  a  night- 
ingale had  sung  in  the  shrubbery  on  the  Side  Lawn. 
He  pictured  Amelia  leaning  on  the  window-sill  in 
her  nightgown  in  the  warm  night,  listening  to  the 
bird.  It  was  in  one  corner  of  the  Lawn  opposite 
Amelia's  window  that  George  had  fought  Tom 


208  THE  CATFISH 

Burchell,  and  he  now  felt  that  in  some  unexplained 
way  his  anger  had  been  connected  with  his  rever- 
ence for  women.  Certainly  his  feelings  about  the 
iris  resembled  his  feelings  about  them. 

He  now  treated  Amelia  with  immense  considera- 
tion. It  is  to  be  feared  that  she  did  not  rise  to 
his  ideas  about  her,  but  larked  with  the  young  men 
who  came  to  play  tennis  in  the  most  commonplace 
way.  She  said  that  George  had  got  frightfully 
solemn  since  he  had  been  in  London. 

With  his  mother,  George  was  on  rather  harrow- 
ing terms.  She  no  longer  complained,  but  made  a 
point  of  accepting  the  situation.  Their  positions 
were  now  reversed.  It  was  now  George  who 
wanted  to  confide  in  her.  He  wanted  to  tell  her 
about  Mary  Festing.  The  reason,  as  he  knew,  was 
partly  selfish;  he  felt  instinctively  that,  better 
than  anybody  else,  his  mother  could  help  him  to 
understand  his  feelings;  but  he  said  to  himself 
that  his  mother  had  liked  Mary  Festing  and  would 
be  glad  to  hear  about  her.  But  when  he  told  his 
mother  that  he  had  met  Mary  again,  she  said  po- 
litely : 

"  Oh,  yes.  She's  a  friend  of  the  Darraghs,  isn't 
she?" 

George  hastened  to  assure  her  that  this  time  he 


THE  CATFISH  209 

had  met  Mary  independently  of  the  Darraghs.  He 
reminded  her  that  Mrs.  Glanville  was  a  friend  of 
his  father's. 

Mrs.  Tracy  laughed.  "  Yes,  I  know,"  she  said, 
"we  have  often  talked  about  Miss  Jane  Marlow. 
People  used  to  tease  your  father  about  her;  she 
ran  after  him  in  the  most  barefaced  way.  Her 
father,  you  know,  was  one  of  the  biggest  land- 
owners in  Somerset,  and  Jane  would  have  got  him 
to  do  something  for  your  father.  But  he  had  other 
ideas.  However,  she  seems  to  have  got  over  it 
all  right.  Evidently  it  was  only  a  girlish  infatua- 
tion. Your  father  was  very  good-looking,  you 
know." 

At  one  time  all  this  would  have  interested  George, 
but  he  felt  now  that  it  was  irrelevant.  He  said 
that  Mrs.  Glanville  was  very  kind  to  Mary  Fest- 
ing. 

"  Evidently  she  is  a  very  good-natured  woman," 
said  his  mother.  "  It  was  kind  of  her  to  look  you 
up,  and  I  hope  you  will  take  full  advantage  of  her 
hospitality.  She  must  know  all  sorts  of  people  who 
might  be  useful  to  you  in  business." 

George  felt  snubbed.  He  knew  that  his  mother 
did  not  care  a  snap  for  business.  Once  again  he 
said  to  himself  that  women  were  the  devil.  They 


210  THE  CATFISH 

never  would  accept  the  province  in  which  they 
might  be  of  use  to  a  fellow.  At  the  same  time, 
he  appreciated  the  humor  of  the  situation.  The 
way  his  mother  persisted  in  "  seeing  "  Mrs.  Glan- 
ville  was  precisely  the  way  he  played  up  to  Mrs. 
Glanville  in  bluffing  Mary  Festing.  Even  if  he 
had  wanted  to,  he  could  swear  that  he  had  not 
bluffed  his  mother.  She  simply  would  not  be 
drawn. 

George  made  other  attempts  to  hold  out  the 
olive-branch  to  his  mother,  but  without  result.  She 
was  perfectly  good-humored,  and  even  affectionate, 
but  she  would  not  now  accept  the  confidence  he 
had  hitherto  denied  her.  Whenever  he  showed 
signs  of  becoming  confidential,  she  began  to  talk 
about  business;  and  once,  when  he  artfully  edged 
in  the  subject  of  Mary  Festing  by  repeating  a  con- 
versation between  the  young  people  at  Devonport 
Terrace,  his  mother  said: 

"  You  seem  to  have  great  fun,  but  you  mustn't 
forget  that  you  are  learning  to  be  a  banker.  I 
shouldn't  get  too  much  mixed  up  with  an  artistic 
set,  if  I  were  you.  They  are  rather  apt  to  play 
instead  of  work." 

He  felt  that  it  was  aimed  at  Darragh,  and  that 
froze  him  up.  It  was  not  that  he  was  prepared  to 


THE  CATFISH  211 

confess  to  a  personal  interest  in  Mary  Festing,  but 
he  wanted  to  talk  round  her,  and  he  knew  that  a 
year  ago  his  mother  would  have  welcomed  such  an 
opportunity. 

Gently  but  firmly  repulsed  by  his  mother,  George 
was  drawn  into  still  closer  companionship  with  his 
father.  Here,  at  any  rate,  there  was  perfect  con- 
fidence—  as  far  as  it  went;  for,  as  George  knew, 
there  was  a  whole  side  of  him  that  his  father  ig- 
nored. Now  that  he  had  some  practical  acquaint- 
ance with  business,  Mr.  Tracy  talked  to  him  about 
the  affairs  of  the  bank  as  well  as  about  the  land. 
Old  Walter  cheerfully  accepted  the  situation.  For 
him  the  bank  was  a  legitimate  occupation,  and 
Bourneside  a  pleasant  home.  Improvement  in  both 
was  to  be  welcomed  as  improving  the  family  po- 
sition, but  he  had  no  other  ideas  upon  the  subject. 
Mr.  Tracy  was  interested  in  George's  observations 
of  London,  though  he  did  not  interpret  them  in 
quite  the  same  way  as  George.  His  attitude  to 
the  new  spirit  in  business  might  be  described  as 
stoical.  He  believed  in  sitting  tight;  particularly 
in  sitting  tight  upon  the  land.  Honest  finance  and 
the  land  were  his  remedies.  George  did  not  un- 
derrate them,  but  he  had  an  increasing  belief  that 
something  might  still  be  done  with  commerce  and 


212  THE  CATFISH 

manufacture.  He  did  not  see  exactly  how  it  was 
to  be  done,  but  he  was  more  and  more  convinced 
that  no  serious  attempt  had  yet  been  made  to  de- 
velop them  under  the  new  conditions. 

In  his  hours  of  leisure  George  renewed  his  alle- 
giance to  the  landscape  of  his  childhood.  He  took 
long  walks  in  every  direction,  clearing  up  little  top- 
ographical problems  that  had  puzzled  him,  confirm- 
ing some  beliefs  and  exploding  some  illusions.  But 
with  clearer  knowledge,  the  sense  of  mystery  re- 
mained. Everything  had  now  a  deeper  meaning 
connected,  not  with  the  dreams  of  a  child,  but  with 
the  emotions  of  a  man.  He  was  not  prepared  to 
call  it  love,  it  was  too  complicated  by  the  feeling 
of  resistance;  but  he  observed,  as  a  new  thing,  that 
the  Waterfall  was  the  mingled  destiny  of  two  rivers, 
and  when  he  walked  in  the  Grove  he  read  into  the 
secret  murmuring  of  the  Bourne  the  words,  "  Mary 
Festing,  Chelsea." 


CHAPTER  XI 

DARRAGH  came  up  to  London  in  January. 
One  of  the  pleasures  of  his  coming  that 
George  had  looked  forward  to  was  denied  him, 
because  Darragh  knew  his  way  about  London  bet- 
ter than  he  did.  George  was  struck  by  the  ex- 
tremely practical  way  in  which  Darragh,  whom  he 
had  always  regarded  as  a  dreamer,  managed  his 
affairs.  He  had  half  expected  that  Darragh  would 
settle  in  Chelsea,  but  Darragh  said  it  was  too  far 
from  the  Slade  school,  too  dear  and  too  dilettante. 
He  took  a  top  room  in  Red  Lion  Square,  nearly 
opposite  the  house  that  Rossetti  and  William  Morris 
had  lived  in. 

The  first  time  George  took  Darragh  to  Devonport 
Terrace  he  recognized  the  soundness  of  the  vague 
idea  at  the  back  of  his  mind.  There  was  no  need 
to  push  Mary  Festing  off  on  Darragh.  The  latter 
was  quite  civil  to  Mrs.  Glanville,  but  he  went  at  once 
to  Mary  and  talked  to  her  most  of  the  afternoon. 
From  the  unalloyed  pleasure  that  it  gave  him  to 

see  them  together,  George  knew  that  he  could  not 

213 


214  THE  CATFISH 

be  in  love  with  Mary.  He  was  not  in  the  least 
jealous,  though  he  was  a  little  envious.  It  must 
be  jolly  to  be  able  to  talk  to  Mary  about  real  things 
without  being  embarrassed  or  having  to  play  the 
man  of  the  world. 

When  they  came  away  Darragh  said  something 
to  George  about  his  not  liking  Mary. 

"Oh,  I  like  her  all  right,"  said  George,  "but 
she's  rather  too  clever  for  me." 

"  She's  very  simple,"  said  Darragh. 

George  reflected  that  it  was  exactly  her  simplicity 
that  he  was  afraid  of;  she  was  always  being  simple 
in  unexpected  places;  but  he  did  not  say  so.  He 
could  not  have  put  it  clearly. 

The  situation  created  by  Darragh's  arrival  pleased 
him  very  well.  Taking  sides  with  Mrs.  Glanville 
had  its  disadvantages,  because  it  kept  Mary  from 
talking  seriously.  George  liked  Mary  to  talk  seri- 
ously —  so  long  as  he  did  not  have  to  take  part  in 
the  conversation.  Darragh  did  that  for  him,  and 
George  was  quite  content  to  listen  or  to  say :  "  Yes, 
that's  what  I  mean."  It  did  not  worry  him  that 
Mary  evidently  regarded  him  as  rather  a  sheep. 
He  did  not  care  what  she  thought  about  him  so 
long  as  she  did  not  make  him  give  himself  away. 

Nor  was  he  disturbed  when  the  Glanvilles  pres- 


THE  CATFISH  215 

ently  said  that  Darragh  must  be  in  love  with  Mary 
Festing.  It  seemed  natural.  But  something  he 
heard  made  a  deeper  impression  on  George  than 
he  knew  at  the  time.  One  Sunday  afternoon  in 
April,  when  he  left  Devonport  Terrace,  Doctor  Ray- 
mond walked  with  him  across  the  Gardens.  Mary 
and  Darragh  had  previously  gone  away  together 
to  Chelsea.  Mrs.  Raymond  was  about  to  have  her 
first  baby  and  the  young  doctor  was  in  a  mood 
both  sentimental  and  physiological.  With  due  re- 
gard for  the  youth  of  his  companion,  he  talked 
remorsefully  of  the  risks  women  had  to  run  on 
account  of  men. 

"  Of  course,  it's  right,"  he  said,  "  and  I  wouldn't 
have  my  wife  shirk  her  responsibilities.  I  see  too 
much  of  the  misery  caused  by  that  sort  of  thing  — 
let  alone  the  duty  to  the  race.  But,  after  all,  it's 
easy  enough  to  talk.  We  don't  have  to  go  through 
it.  I  tell  you  what  it  is,  Tracy,  it  makes  a  man 
feel  a  selfish  hound." 

George  murmured  something  sympathetic,  though 
he  could  not  help  feeling  rather  amused.  Without 
knowing  the  reason,  he  had  observed  that  Mrs. 
Glanville  was  inclined  to  be  scornful  of  her  son- 
in-law  that  afternoon.  Indeed,  it  was  she  who  had 
proposed  that  Doctor  Raymond  should  accompany 


216  THE  CATFISH 

him,  saying :  "  For  Heaven's  sake  take  him  away, 
George.  He's  getting  on  my  nerves,  and  he'll  only 
be  a  nuisance  to  Carrie  if  he  goes  home."  Now 
that  he  understood  the  reason,  George  wondered 
if  husbands  were  always  so  illogical.  He  himself 
had  a  sort  of  mind  that  accepts  consequences  from 
the  beginning,  though  he  was  prepared  to  admit 
that  it  is  easy  enough  to  talk. 

Doctor  Raymond  continued  to  talk  about  the  sub- 
ject nearest  his  heart,  with  illustrations  both  com- 
forting and  alarming,  drawn  from  his  experience. 
George  thought  him  rather  tiresomely  uxorious,  but 
he  could  not  help  feeling  a  little  flattered  by  the 
claim  upon  his  sympathy.  He  asked  intelligent 
questions,  and  the  subject  gradually  ascended  from 
the  physiological  to  the  psychological  region,  and 
from  the  personal  to  the  general.  They  discussed 
the  laws  of  attraction,  with  their  mysteries  and 
complications,  and  presently  Doctor  Raymond  said 
something  about  "  poor  old  Darragh." 

George  asked  why  Darragh  was  to  be  pitied,  and 
Doctor  Raymond  said : 

"  Well,  anybody  can  see  that  he  is  strongly  at- 
tracted by  Mary  Festing." 

George  said  that  he  thought  that  Mary  was  very 
fond  of  Darragh,  and  Doctor  Raymond  said :  "  Yes, 


THE  CATFISH  217 

but  not  in  the  same  way.  Miss  Festing  will  never 
marry." 

He  went  on  to  speak  of  natural  celibates.  To 
the  trained  observer,  he  said,  there  were  all  sorts 
of  signs.  In  his  opinion,  Mary  Festing  was  of  the 
vestal  type.  All  her  emotional  life  went  into  her 
work.  "  Besides,"  he  added,  "  I  happen  to  know 
her  own  ideas  upon  the  subject.  Women  talk 
among  themselves  just  as  we  do,  and  she  once  told 
my  wife  that  the  physical  side  of  love  repelled  her. 
'  Horrid,'  was  the  expression  she  used." 

At  the  time  the  information  seemed  to  George 
poetically  right.  It  went  with  his  own  white 
thoughts  about  Mary  Festing;  her  association  in 
his  mind  with  the  sickle  moon,  the  lurking  cool- 
ness of  her  verse  and  prose  —  even  with  the  sighing 
remoteness  of  her  name  and  place :  "  Mary  Fest- 
ing, Chelsea."  Passion  had  never  come  into  his 
thoughts  regarding  her;  the  difference  was  that 
henceforward  she  was  definitely  and  beautifully  set 
apart  from  passion.  What  Doctor  Raymond  said 
about  Darragh  did  not  concern  him;  he  supposed 
that  Darragh  thought  about  Mary  Festing  in  the 
same  way  that  he  did. 

Soon  after  this  conversation  Darragh  took  George 
to  see  Mary  Festing  in  Chelsea.  Mary  had  already 


218  THE  CATFISH 

given  George  a  general  invitation,  but  he  had  been 
shy  about  visiting  her  alone,  and  had  contented 
himself  with  identifying  the  house  in  which  she 
lived,  when  he  had  been  rather  depressed  by  the 
squalor  of  King's  Road.  It  comforted  him  that 
the  house  in  which  Mary  lived  was  a  little  screened 
from  the  road  by  trees. 

Mary's  rooms  were  at  the  top  of  the  house. 
A  motherly-looking  woman,  whom  Darragh  greeted 
familiarly  as  Mrs.  Pinney,  opened  the  front  door, 
upon  the  jamb  of  which  were  several  little  brass 
name-plates.  The  prints  and  etchings  upon  the  walls 
of  the  narrow  staircase  seemed  to  indicate  that  the 
owners  of  the  names  were  artists.  Mary  opened 
the  door  when  Darragh  knocked,  and  said,  "  Oh, 
it's  you,  Miles,"  and  then,  with  a  slight  change  of 
tone :  "  This  is  an  honor,  George."  The  impression 
George  received  was  that  Mary  was  not  very  well 
pleased  to  see  him,  and  he  was  half  sorry  that  he 
had  come. 

He  was  glad,  however,  to  see  Mary's  room.  The 
walls  were  white  and  bare,  the  ceiling  sloped  to 
the  windows,  and  a  low  couch  covered  with  dark 
blue  serge  made  a  severe  pattern  against  the  wall. 
A  Sheraton  writing-table,  another  small  table  and 
three  chairs  were  all  the  furniture,  and  there  were 


THE  CATFISH  219 

very  few  books.  The  only  picture  was  a  repro- 
duction of  Whistler's  Mother,  which,  in  its  angu- 
lar lines,  seemed  to  sum  up  the  character  of  the 
room.  With  Doctor  Raymond's  conversation 
fresh  in  his  mind,  however,  George  felt  that  the 
atmosphere  of  the  room  was  more  like  that  of  Ros- 
setti's  Ecce  Ancilla  Domini. 

Mary  sat  upon  the  couch,  with  her  hands  in  her 
lap,  bending  a  little  forward.  She  looked  very 
thin  and  dark  against  the  white  wall,  and  in  spite 
of  her  stillness,  very  swift.  They  talked  about 
the  Slade  school.  George  had  already  learned  that 
Darragh  had  made  a  remarkable  impression  at  the 
school;  he  was  talked  about  as  a  genius.  Darragh 
did  not  seem  elated;  his  conversation  was  severely 
practical.  He  was  critical  of  the  methods  of  teach- 
ing. It  was  as  if  he  knew  exactly  what  he  needed 
to  learn,  and  meant  to  have  his  own  way.  George 
envied  him  his  quiet  confidence.  Mary's  questions 
about  the  school,  though  she  neither  drew  nor 
painted,  sounded  practical,  too.  George  knew  that 
he  was  listening  to  the  conversation  of  real  pro- 
fessionals; people  to  whom  art  was  a  matter  of 
precise  knowledge.  He  was  beginning  to  feel  that 
artists  were  the  only  people  who  really  understood 
their  business.  In  passing,  Mary's  manner  to  Dar- 


220  THE  CATFISH 

ragh  reminded  him  of  Eleanor  Markham's  to  him- 
self in  his  childhood  —  with  the  difference  that 
Mary  seemed  satisfied. 

With  Darragh  between  them  he  felt  oddly  at  ease 
with  Mary.  If  she  had  suddenly  begun  to  talk 
about  the  scene  in  the  nursery  at  Bourneside  he 
would  not  have  been  in  the  least  embarrassed.  He 
could  have  told  her  why  she  ought  to  have  been 
a  Servian  princess,  and  why  he  had  given  in  to 
Walter  so  easily.  "  Don't  you  see,"  he  would 
have  said,  "that  it  was  no  use  arguing?  They 
would  not  have  understood.  We  were  talking  a 
different  language."  .  He  could  almost  have  told 
Mary  why  he  had  fought  Tom  Burchell  about  the 
broken  iris.  In  this  company  it  would  have  been 
a  commonplace  to  say :  "  It  was  a  crime  upon 
beauty." 

He  knew  that  Mary  understood  him  as  nobody 
else  did,  not  even  himself.  He  could  hide  nothing 
from  her.  She  asked  Darragh  questions,  but  she 
did  not  ask  him  questions.  She  took  him  for 
granted,  as  if  she  said :  "  You  can  wait."  But 
if  she  called  him  he  would  have  to  come,  wherever 
he  was;  he  would  have  to  do  whatever  she  told 
him  to  do.  He  half  enjoyed,  half  resented  her 
power. 


THE  CATFISH  221 

At  present  she  would  let  him  alone.  He  knew 
by  instinct  that  she  was  not  dissatisfied  at  his  be- 
ing in  the  bank.  The  only  thing  she  said  that 
sounded  like  a  reproof  was :  "  You  have  not  been 
to  see  Eleanor  Markham." 

She  said  it,  fixing  her  dark  eyes  on  him  with 
quiet  assurance,  so  that  he  dismissed  the  idea  of 
excusing  himself  by  saying  that  he  did  not  know 
where  Eleanor  Markham  lived,  though  it  was  true. 
He  knew  that  Mrs.  Markham  was  dead,  and  Rose 
married,  and  that  Eleanor  kept  house  for  her  father 
somewhere  near  London.  Mary  now  told  him  that 
the  Markhams  lived  at  Holmhurst,  in  Surrey. 

"  They  have  a  most  beautiful  garden,"  she  said. 
"  I  am  going  down  there  on  Saturday." 

It  was  only  then  that  George  felt  a  return  of 
self-consciousness.  To  sit  with  Mary  and  Darragh 
in  a  room  was  one  thing;  to  sit  with  Mary  and 
Eleanor  Markham  in  a  beautiful  garden  quite  an- 
other. But  he  said  that  he  would  go  to  see  the 
Markhams. 

When  Mrs.  Pinney  brought  tea  she  embarrassed 
George  by  asking  him  if  he  did  not  think  that  Mary 
looked  well.  "  Mr.  Darragh  would  never  notice," 
she  said  compassionately,  "he's  one  of  the  same 
sort,  he  is.  But  you  look  as  if  you  treated  your 


222  THE  CATFISH 

stomach  proper  and  went  out.  You  should  take 
Miss  Festing  on  the  river." 

"Don't  frighten  him,  Mrs.  Pinney,"  said  Mary 
with  mock  gravity,  and  George  wondered  exactly 
what  she  meant.  He  was  afraid  she  was  getting 
at  him. 

After  Mrs.  Pinney  had  gone  he  found  himself 
talking  about  Mrs.  Dove  and  Cardigan  Square. 
But  not  as  he  talked  about  them  to  Mrs.  Glanville. 
He  told  Mary  and  Darragh  about  Mrs.  Dove's  pa- 
thetic memorials  of  her  better  days,  and  how  she 
loved  the  queen.  He  believed  that  just  as  good 
people  were  supposed  to  be  always  ready  to  meet 
God,  so  Mrs.  Dove  lived  as  if  at  any  moment  she 
might  be  called  upon  to  receive  the  queen  in  Cardi- 
gan Square.  Then  there  was  Mr.  Mahon :  how  he 
went  to  mass,  and  his  sensitiveness  about  the  army, 
as  if  he  felt  that  he  had  been  an  unworthy  soldier. 
George  wished  that  he  could  ask  Mary  to  Cardigan 
Square,  but  he  did  not  quite  see  how  it  could  be 
managed.  Darragh  had  already  been  there  and 
had  won  Mrs.  Dove's  heart  by  praising  her  draw- 
ings. 

When  the  two  young  men  came  away  Darragh 
spoke  of  Mary's  unhappy  life  with  her  parents. 
He  said  that  there  was  nothing  to  choose  between 


THE  CATFISH  223 

them,  and  if  George  had  reflected  he  might  have 
seen  that  there  was  a  good  reason  why  so  young 
a  girl  should  hastily  decide  that  one  aspect  of  life 
was  "  horrid  ". 

Through  Darragh  and  Mary,  George  became 
acquainted  with  the  literary  and  artistic  world  of 
London.  He  quickly  saw  that  it  was  not  his  world, 
and  he  was  glad  that  some  instinct  had  warned  him 
that  his  talents  were  not  in  the  direction  of  art 
or  literature.  He  saw  that  a  great  many  of  the 
people  in  that  world  were  there  by  mistake,  and 
that  it  was  upon  their  uneasy  efforts  to  feel  at 
home  that  most  of  the  common  sayings  about  the 
artistic  temperament  were  based.  Real  artists  like 
Mary  and  Darragh  were  very  practical.  The  ar- 
tistic temperament  was  all  right  if  you  had  enough 
of  it,  but  a  little  was  disturbing  and  led  to  all 
sorts  of  affectations. 

There  was  Mr.  Lindrop,  for  example.  At  first 
George  had  supposed  that  Mr.  Lindrop  must  be  a 
very  great  artist,  because  he  looked  so  romantic 
and  was  always  talking  about  imagination.  His 
studio  was  full  of  beautiful  things,  and  there  were 
always  a  lot  of  young  women  about.  Mr.  Lindrop 
sang  to  them  and  talked  to  them  about  their  clothes 
under  pink  shaded  lights  with  pastilles  burning  on 


224  THE  CATFISH 

Moorish  tables.  George  thought  Mr.  Lindrop's 
pictures  rather  weak,  and  yet  they  pleased  him. 
When  he  spoke  to  Darragh  about  them,  Darragh 
said: 

"  Oh,  Lindrop  is  a  duffer,  but  he  has  an  exquisite 
sense  of  color.  He  thinks  that  by  sticking  wings 
on  a  figure  or  putting  the  head  on  one  side  you 
make  it  poetical.  If  he  would  leave  the  figure 
alone  and  stick  to  still-life,  he  might  do  charming 
things." 

Looking  at  Mr.  Lindrop's  pictures  again,  George 
saw  that  it  was  the  color  that  had  pleased  him. 
He  observed  Mr.  Lindrop  holding  a  piece  of  green 
silk  against  a  girl's  hair,  and  the  tantalizing  thought 
came  into  his  mind  that  there  was  a  real  use  for 
Mr.  Lindrop  somewhere  if  one  could  only  think 
of  it. 

George  found  that  his  life  was  getting  fuller  of 
such  tantalizing  thoughts.  It  was  partly,  no  doubt, 
due  to  his  not  yet  having  found  his  own  game, 
but  wherever  he  went  he  was  bothered  by  the  idea 
of  waste,  of  people  doing  things  indifferently  while 
their  real  capabilities  were  being  neglected.  His 
conversations  with  Darragh  and  Shelmerdine,  who 
were  his  two  most  intimate  companions,  often 
turned  on  the  subject.  Darragh  said  he  didn't 


THE  CATFISH  225 

know  about  that,  and  Shelmerdine  said  that  the 
reason  was  economical.  The  word  made  George 
laugh,  and  Shelmerdine  became  argumentative. 

"  You've  got  a  lot  of  ideas,  old  chap,"  he  said, 
"  but  you  don't  understand  business.  First  of  all, 
a  thing's  got  to  be  made  to  pay,  to  give  a  good 
return  on  capital." 

"Well,  how  are  you  going  to  make  it  pay?" 
said  George. 

"  That's  a  large  order,"  said  Shelmerdine,  "  but 
advertising  goes  a  long  way.  Make  people  see 
that  they're  getting  good  value  for  their  money. 
That's  why  concerns  are  getting  bigger  and  bigger. 
The  small  firms  can't  afford  to  advertise,  and  so 
they  go  under." 

At  the  time  George  was  not  prepared  to  argue, 
but  he  was  inwardly  convinced  that  Shelmerdine 
had  no  idea  how  things  were  done,  except  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  investor.  That  presently 
gave  him  a  clue  to  some  of  the  problems  that  were 
bothering  him.  One  result  of  concerns  getting 
bigger  and  bigger  was  a  separation  of  interests.  It 
was  not  merely  a  separation  between  capital  and 
labor;  it  was  a  separation  between  the  financial  and 
executive  sides  of  things.  One  set  of  people  of 
different  grades  did  the  work,  and  another  set  of 


226  THE  CATFISH 

people  provided  the  money.  It  was  the  financiers 
who  called  the  tune.  They  controlled  the  adver- 
tisements and  decided  what  the  public  wanted. 
Practically,  they  decided  what  the  public  should 
have. 

That  explained  something  that  had  often  puzzled 
him.  Wherever  he  went,  into  shops,  to  the  theater, 
in  the  train,  he  was  struck  by  the  fact  that  people 
were  better  than  their  jobs.  They  could  do  better 
work  than  they  did.  On  the  other  hand,  he  heard 
nothing  but  grumbling  from  the  public:  rotten 
boots,  beastly  beer,  silly  play,  abominable  train 
service.  Now  he  thought  he  saw  the  reason.  Be- 
tween the  people  who  could  do  better  work  and 
the  public  that  wanted  better  things  stood  the  finan- 
cial person  who  controlled  the  concern. 

Half  consciously,  he  began  to  make  observations. 
There  was  that  question  of  advertising,  for  ex- 
ample. At  best  it  was  directed  toward  overcom- 
ing resistance  instead  of  encouraging  an  instinctive 
demand.  But  that  was  not  the  worst.  In  many 
cases  it  must  actually  increase  the  resistance.  Bad 
as  things  were,  they  were  not  nearly  so  bad  as  the 
advertisements  made  out.  Pictures  on  the  hoard- 
ings assured  him  that  only  the  most  imbecile  or 
offensive  people  could  tolerate  somebody's  collars, 


THE  CATFISH  227 

clothes,  tobacco,  play,  or  whatever  it  might  be; 
but  when  by  accident,  ignorance  or  laziness  he  was 
induced  to  try  the  article,  he  found  that  often 
enough  it  was  not  half  bad.  Indeed,  the  first  step 
toward  buying  anything  was  overcoming  the  prej- 
udice against  it  created  by  the  advertisement. 
George  could  not  believe  that  he  was  singular  in 
this  respect;  he  knew  he  was  not.  When,  down 
in  Chelsea,  he  talked  to  some  of  the  artists  who 
made  the  pictures  on  the  hoardings  he  found  that 
they  shared  his  opinion.  But  when  he  asked  them 
why  they  did  not  draw  more  attractive  people  they 
said :  "  My  dear  chap,  they  won't  have  them ; 
that's  their  idea  of  the  public  " — "  they  "  meaning 
the  people  who  commissioned  the  writing  of  the  ad- 
vertisements. 

The  subject  fascinated  him,  and  he  found  that  it 
worked  out  in  all  sorts  of  curious  ways.  If,  on  his 
way  to  the  Mansion  House,  he  was  faced  by  the 
contents-bills  of  two  evening  papers,  and  one  said: 
"Blank  Case:  Result,"  and  the  other:  "Blank 
found  Guilty,"  he  found  that  he  always  instinc- 
tively bought  the  second.  When  he  came  to  rea- 
son it  out  he  found  that  it  was  because  he  un- 
consciously assumed  that  the  paper  that  made  no 
secret  of  its  news  must  be  the  better  worth  reading. 


228  THE  CATFISH 

The  other  traded  on  an  uncertainty,  which  could 
be  settled  at  a  glance.  Altogether  newspapers 
were  an  interesting  study.  Generally  they  were 
bad,  and  their  readers  despised  them;  and  yet  the 
men  who  wrote  for  them  were  extraordinarily  capa- 
ble. Talking  to  these  men,  George  learned  that  edi- 
tors were  getting  less  and  less  power,  and  managers 
—  who  represented  the  financial  side  —  more  and 
more.  Everything  seemed  to  confirm  George's  be- 
lief that  the  real  Old  Man  of  the  Sea  on  the  back 
of  modern  industry  was  the  financial  person.  It 
was  true  that  he  found  the  money,  but  he  also 
prevented  its  being  used  to  the  best  advantage, 
chiefly  because  he  relied  on  generalizations  about 
the  public.  The  people  who  did  the  work  or  who 
came  in  personal  contact  with  the  customer  knew 
and  could  do  better,  but  they  were  not  allowed  to 
make  use  of  their  knowledge  and  powers.  When- 
ever George  remembered  Shelmerdine's  use  of  the 
word  "  economical  "  he  laughed  aloud. 

As  yet  his  observations  were  analytical  and  de- 
structive, but  he  felt  that  presently  they  would  be- 
come synthetical  and  constructive.  How  he  did 
not  know;  he  certainly  did  not  feel  drawn  to  any 
particular  branch  of  commerce  or  manufacture,  and 
he  knew  that  until  he  found  his  game  he  could 


THE  CATFISH  229 

not  make  practical  use  of  his  observations.  The 
only  thing  he  felt  sure  about  was  that  he  was  more 
interested  in  the  way  things  were  done  than  in  the 
way  money  was  invested. 


CHAPTER  XII 

MRS.  GLANVILLE  attended  to  his  social  edu- 
cation. She  took  him  about  and  gave  him 
introductions  to  all  sorts  of  people.  He  got  to 
know,  not  only  Bayswater,  but  something  of  the 
solemn  squares  to  the  eastward  and  the  more  modest 
fringes  of  Mayfair  and  Westminster.  Kensington 
he  learned  through  Mrs.  Dove,  and  with  Darragh 
he  explored  Bloomsbury  and  Chelsea.  Shelmerdine 
and  Tom  Burchell  brought  him  in  touch  with  other 
worlds.  He  found  them  all  interesting  and  amus- 
ing, and  in  them  all  he  preserved  a  certain  detach- 
ment. He  had  no  more  found  his  world  than  he 
had  found  his  game.  But  though  he  did  not  give 
himself  away,  he  was  a  sympathetic  listener,  and 
people  told  him  what  they  wanted,  as  distinct  from 
what  they  were  supposed  to  want.  He  heard  what 
they  really  thought  about  the  plays,  newspapers, 
restaurants  and  shops  that  they  supported  for  want 
of  something  better,  and  he  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  nearly  all  the  generalizations  about  the 
public  taste  were  untrue. 

250 


THE  CATFISH  231 

Every  now  and  then  he  came  upon  something 
being  done,  generally  in  a  small  way,  about  as  well 
as  it  could  be  done.  From  the  first  he  had  been 
struck  by  Mrs.  Glanville's  clothes,  and  he  learned 
that  she  was  considered  to  be  a  very  well-dressed 
woman.  Men  in  particular  admired  her;  they 
didn't  know  what  it  was,  but  she  always  looked 
smart.  Mrs.  Glanville  encouraged  George  to  notice 
her  clothes;  she  said  it  was  part  of  a  liberal  educa- 
tion. He  always  supposed  that  she  got  them  in 
Paris,  but  one  day  when  he  said  so,  she  laughed 
and  said: 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it.     Promise  you  won't  tell  ?  " 

He  said  that  he  wouldn't,  and  she  said: 

"  From  Kate  Flanders,  a  little  person  in  Hanover 
Square.  Would  you  like  to  meet  her  ?  " 

George  laughed,  and  said  that  he  wasn't  particu- 
larly keen  about  it,  but  Mrs.  Glanville  said : 

"  It'll  be  an  experience.  I  daren't  take  you  there, 
because  Kate  Flanders  hates  men  with  an  exceeding 
bitter  hatred.  That's  what  makes  her  an  artist. 
But  I'll  ask  her  to  tea,  and  you  shall  come  in  by 
accident." 

When  he  saw  Kate  Flanders,  George  understood 
that  "  little  person  "  referred  to  her  condition  and 
not  her  size.  She  was  tall  and  slight,  with  the 


232  THE  CATFISH 

most  tragic  face  he  had  ever  seen.  She  made  him 
understand  what  was  meant  by  "  a  wreck  of  a 
woman,"  though  she  was  good-looking,  and  if  he 
had  met  her  in  the  street  he  would  have  supposed 
her  to  be  insane.  To  himself  he  called  her  "  Me- 
dusa." 

At  first  she  was  hostile,  and  he  could  hear  her 
cup  chattering  in  the  saucer  as  her  hands  trembled 
with  suppressed  anger,  but  he  was  tactfully  dis- 
interested and  presently  Mrs.  Glanville  got  her  to 
talk.  Kate  Flanders  struck  him  as  remarkably 
cynical.  With  slow  venomous  articulation,  she 
talked  about  some  of  her  customers.  It  seemed 
to  him  that  she  knew  and  with  cold  calculation 
played  upon  every  strange  instinct  that  had  ever 
been  aroused  in  him  by  the  bodies  of  women. 
What  he  had  feared  and  suppressed  she  made  the 
basis  of  her  art.  He  was  repelled  and  yet  curiously 
interested. 

When  she  had  gone,  with  a  malignant  bow  to  him 
that  he  felt  was  not  personally  intended,  but  due 
to  his  sex,  Mrs.  Glanville  said: 

"  I  believe  the  odd  creature  rather  liked  you. 
What  I  wanted  you  to  see  was  that  Kate  Flanders 
really  does  '  dress  to  kill  '.  If  she  didn't  do  it 
that  way,  upon  my  word  I  believe  she  would  do  it 


THE  CATFISH  233 

with  a  knife  or  bombs."  George  asked  the  reason, 
but  Mrs.  Glanville  said :  "  Kate's  history  is  simply 
not  to  be  told.  What  you  see  is  the  result.  I'm 
lucky  enough  to  be  one  of  her  favorites,  chiefly,  I 
believe,  because  she  thinks  I'm  not  quite  respectable. 
She  dresses  Maude  Stuart,  you  know.  If  you  were 
happily  married  and  took  your  wife  to  her,  Kate 
would  be  quite  capable  of  wilful  botching." 

"  That's  why  she's  only  a  little  person,  I  sup- 
pose," said  George. 

"Not  altogether,"  said  Mrs.  Glanville.  "You 
see,  with  the  rent  she  has  to  pay,  she  can't  afford 
to  do  much  advertising,  and  —  it's  selfish,  of  course 
—  her  customers  naturally  don't  advertise  for  her." 

George  said  he  was  surprised  that  none  of  the  big 
firms  had  snapped  up  Miss  Flanders,  but  Mrs.  Glan- 
ville said: 

"  They're  too  stupid,  my  dear  man.  And  if 
they  did,  they  wouldn't  have  the  sense  to  give  her 
a  free  hand.  Kate  under  orders  would  be  just 
ordinary.  It  would  be  like  telling  a  soldier  to  kill, 
but  not  allowing  him  to  aim  straight." 

It  all  jumped  with  George's  general  ideas,  and 
he  put  Kate  Flanders  away  in  his  mind  along  with 
Mr.  Lindrop  as  a  tantalizing  problem.  The  asso- 
ciation amused  him. 


234  THE  CATFISH 

Altogether,  George  was  having  a  very  full  and 
interesting  life  in  London.  He  was  getting  on  well 
at  the  bank,  though  Mr.  Baldwin  didn't  know  what 
to  make  of  him.  It  was  almost  a  grievance  to 
Mr.  Baldwin  that  a  young  man  who  didn't  take 
banking  seriously  should  be  punctual,  careful  and 
methodical.  Shelmerdine  was  clearly  convinced 
that  George  was  what  he  called  a  "  boy-oh,"  and 
his  attitude  to  him  was  "  You  might  tell  a  fellow." 
Mr.  Spaull  predicted  that  George  would  yet  return 
to  the  simple  life. 

Friendly  as  he  remained  with  Darragh,  George 
did  not  see  him  very  often.  Darragh  was  working 
hard,  and  he  had  his  own  set,  which  included  Mary 
Festing.  Sometimes  George  had  the  odd  idea  that 
a  part  of  himself  was  in  Darragh's  and  Mary's 
keeping;  a  part  that  he  didn't  need  in  his  ordinary 
occupations  and  amusements.  It  was  as  if  they 
took  it  out  at  intervals  and  talked  about  it  rather 
regretfully.  At  least  that  was  the  impression  he 
got  when  he  met  them  together.  Then  he  was 
conscious  of  a  slight  check  to  his  well-being,  and 
he  was  inclined  to  say:  "  Bother  Mary  Festing!  " 
She  reminded  him  of  the  uncomfortable  person  who 
said  "  Remember ! "  He  could  never  get  rid  of 
the  idea  that  Mary  knew  everything  he  did.  It 


THE  CATFISH  235 

was  not  that  he  wanted  to  do  anything  wrong,  but 
the  consciousness  of  an  unseen  watcher  coming  upon 
him  in  mixed  company  was  apt  to  be  sobering.  It 
made  him  unaccountably  dry  up. 

George  had  the  usual  temptations  of  a  healthy, 
high-spirited  young  man  more  or  less  at  large  in 
London,  and  he  knew  that  what  kept  him  straight 
was  less  his  own  virtue,  or  the  material  supervision 
of  Mrs.  Dove,  than  the  idea  of  Mary  Festing.  He 
had  no  wish  to  go  wrong,  but  he  a  little  resented 
the  idea  that  he  couldn't  if  he  wished.  He  said  to 
himself :  "  She's  nothing  to  me,"  very  much  as  in 
childhood  he  had  been  prompted  to  throw  sticks  at 
the  Waterfall. 

He  had  kept  his  promise  of  going  to  see  Eleanor 
Markham,  and  at  intervals  repeated  the  visit.  Each 
time  he  went  rather  unwillingly,  as  from  a  sense 
of  duty,  but  each  time  he  was  glad  he  had  gone, 
because  he  felt  renewed,  as  if  he  had  been  dipped 
in  the  waters  of  youth.  Mr.  Markham  was  now 
very  infirm,  and  Eleanor  devoted  her  life  to  him. 
George  understood  from  Mary  that  when  Mr. 
Markham  died,  Eleanor  would  go  into  a  convent, 
and  this  confirmed  his  boyish  impression  that  she 
was  like  the  Holy  Women.  At  first  he  had  been 
a  little  afraid  that  Eleanor  would  talk  to  him  about 


236  THE  CATFISH 

religion,  which  would  have  been  embarrassing,  be- 
cause, without  any  definite  loss  of  faith,  his  re- 
ligious ideas  were  now  in  a  rather  chaotic  condition. 
A  great  many  things  that  were  not  religious  at  all 
came  into  them.  Mary  Festing  was  one,  and  she 
was  certainly  not  religious  —  at  any  rate,  not  in 
Eleanor  Markham's  way. 

But  Eleanor  Markham  did  not  talk  to  him  about 
religion.  She  sat  in  a  garden  looking  toward  the 
hills,  as  if  it  were  near  the  end  of  the  world,  and 
talked  to  him  with  quiet  humor  about  his  life  in 
London.  Without  being  critical,  she  seemed  to  re- 
duce things  to  order,  as  if  she  viewed  them  from  a 
little  height.  Eleanor  was  the  only  person  to  whom 
George  spoke  about  his  mother.  She  said :  "  Be 
patient  with  her;  love  has  many  disguises."  He 
felt,  somehow,  that  the  remark  was  intended  to 
bear  a  wider  application  than  the  immediate  one. 

George  had  not  yet  been  out  of  England,  but 
during  his  third  year  in  London  Darragh  asked 
him  to  go  to  Paris.  This  was  in  May,  and  conse- 
quently the  matter  would  need  some  arrangement. 
Mr.  Baldwin  had  no  objection  to  his  taking  his 
holidays  thus  early  in  the  year,  but  George  thought 
that  he  had  better  write  to  his  father.  His  mother 
answered  the  letter.  She  wrote  more  affectionately 


THE  CATFISH  237 

than  usual.  His  father  left  the  matter  entirely  in 
Mr.  Baldwin's  hands,  and  she  was  glad  that  George 
was  going  to  see  something  of  the  world.  She 
herself  had  been  to  Paris  on  her  honeymoon,  and 
it  had  been  May.  He  was  to  take  particular  note 
of  the  Madeleine  Church  and  the  Cemetery  of 
Pere  Lachaise,  because  she  remembered  them  well. 
In  her  happiness  at  her  marriage,  she  had  laid  a 
flower  out  of  her  wedding- wreath  upon  the  tomb 
of  Abelard  and  Heloise.  At  the  end  of  her  letter 
she  spoke  of  not  having  been  very  well  lately.  Doc- 
tor Fleetwood  did  not  think  it  was  anything  serious, 
but  recommended  the  sea,  and  they  were  going  to 
Clevedon  in  June.  It  was  a  long  time  since  she 
had  been  to  the  sea.  In  a  postscript  she  sent  her 
love  to  Miles.  He  must  come  down  to  Bourneside 
before  long. 

Something  in  the  tone  of  his  mother's  letter  made 
George  hesitate.  He  felt  that  she  wanted  him,  but 
did  not  care  to  say  so  directly.  He  was  half  in- 
clined to  show  the  letter  to  Darragh,  and  when, 
afterward,  he  came  to  consider  the  reason  why  he 
did  not,  he  knew  that  it  was  because  he  was  afraid 
that  Darragh  would  say:  "  Go  to  her."  Darragh 
never  made  mistakes  about  feeling.  At  the  time 
George  reassured  himself;  if  his  mother  had  been 


238  THE  CATFISH 

seriously  unwell,  his  father  would  have  written. 
Still,  he  was  uncomfortably  reminded  of  the  trem- 
bling shadow  of  her  face  on  the  wall,  and  he  said 
to  himself  that  the  next  time  he  went  home  he 
•would  ask  her  forgiveness  for  his  boyish  hardness. 
He  could  explain  now  what  had  caused  it. 

The  two  young  men  put  up  at  a  quaintly-named 
Hotel  des  Ecoles  Coloniales  et  d'Architecture  in  a 
narrow  street  off  the  Boulevard  Montparnasse. 
George  sent  the  address  home  at  once,  and  for  the 
first  two  days  in  Paris  he  rather  tried  Darragh's 
patience  by  returning  to  the  hotel  at  intervals  to 
see  if  there  were  any  letters  for  him.  None  came, 
and  in  the  novelty  of  his  surroundings  he  began  to 
make  light  of  his  apprehensions.  But  on  the  fourth 
day  he  came  in  at  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning 
to  find  a  letter  from  his  father.  His  mother  had 
had  a  slight  paralytic  seizure.  She  was  conscious, 
however,  and  Doctor  Fleetwood  had  good  hopes  of 
her  recovery.  But  the  almost  apologetic  suggestion 
that  he  should  come  home  told  George  that  his 
father  was  anxious,  and  he  immediately  made  prep- 
arations to  catch  the  midday  train.  Darragh  in- 
sisted on  coming  with  him,  and  on  the  heart-breaking 
journey  tried  to  reassure  him  by  saying  that  if 
there  had  been  any  change  for  the  worse,  Mr.  Tracy 


THE  CATFISH  239 

would  have  wired.  He  pointed  out  that  the  seizure 
had  taken  place  on  the  very  day  they  left  London. 
But  George  was  not  comforted.  In  everything  he 
saw  his  father's  practical  mind.  He  would  prepare 
him  while  there  was  yet  time;  but  if  it  were  too  late, 
he  would  see  the  tragic  futility  of  despatching  a 
telegram. 

George  was  right.  When  they  reached  Cardigan 
Square,  he  found,  not  a  telegram,  but  a  letter  to 
tell  him  that  his  mother  died  the  day  before.  "  I 
knew  you  would  come  at  once,"  wrote  his  father, 
"  and  I  wished  to  spare  you  the  blow  in  a  strange 
place." 

George  read  the  letter  in  the  presence  of  Mrs. 
Dove  and  Darragh.  He  gave  it  to  the  former  with- 
out speaking,  and  walked  out  of'  the  room  and 
aimlessly  up  to  his  bedroom.  He  could  not  cry. 
After  a  moment  he  went  down-stairs  again,  and 
going  up  to  Darragh  in  the  dining-room,  put  his 
hands  on  his  shoulders  and  said :  "  I'm  sorry,  old 
chap."  At  the  time  he  did  not  know  why  he  did 
this,  but  afterward  he  knew  that  it  was  because 
Darragh  was  the  cause  of  his  going  to  Paris.  Mrs. 
Dove  put  her  arms  about  him,  and  he  instinctively 
kissed  her,  but  he  did  not  cry.  Then  he  heard 
the  sound  of  Mr.  Mahon's  latch-key  at  the  front 


240  THE  CATFISH 

door,  and  left  the  room  again.  All  his  thoughts 
were  upon  the  surface  of  a  central  deadness. 

Darragh  followed  him  up-stairs  and  reminded  him 
that  there  was  a  train  from  Paddington  at  nine 
o'clock.  His  mother  was  to  be  buried  in  the  morn- 
ing. At  first  George  felt  disinclined  to  go.  "  I 
can't  tell  her  now,"  he  said. 

But  Darragh  said :  "  They  will  be  expecting  you," 
and  then  it  seemed  to  George  that  the  susceptibilities 
of  other  people  had  become  immensely  important. 

Darragh  went  with  him  to  Paddington.  The 
only  thing  George  said  to  him  on  the  way  was: 
"  At  any  rate,  she  sent  her  love  to  you."  He  could 
not  get  it  out  of  his  head  that  Darragh  was  the 
person  to  be  pitied,  and  he  hoped  that  he  would 
not  break  down. 

But  Darragh  did  not  break  down.  He  said  gen- 
tly, "  Yes,  give  her  mine  " ;  and  George  said  that  he 
would,  adding  that  he  wished  they  had  had  time  to 
go  to  Pere  Lachaise. 

For  the  first  part  of  the  train  journey  to  Barstow 
George  was  alone  with  a  heart  that  was  too  numb 
for  grief,  but  at  Reading  a  young  man  got  into  his 
compartment.  He  was  thin,  dark  and  clean- 
shaved,  and  extraordinarily  restless.  From  his  ap- 
pearance he  might  have  been  a  bookmaker  or  a 


THE  CATFISH  241 

music-hall  actor.  He  changed  his  seat,  closed  and 
opened  the  window,  shuffled  his  feet,  whistled  and 
snapped  his  fingers.  Presently,  as  if  in  despera- 
tion, he  began  to  talk,  making  little  foolish  jokes, 
with  puns  and  wilful  mispronunciations.  George 
bore  him  in  a  dazed  sort  of  way,  answering  his 
questions  at  random;  but  at  last,  in  a  crisis  of 
nerves,  told  him  to  shut  up.  The  effect  was  greater 
than  he  intended.  The  very  mobile  face  of  the 
young  man  went  through  a  dozen  changes  of  ex- 
pression: resentment,  surprise,  perplexity  and  ab- 
ject humiliation.  At  another  time  George  would 
have  been  amused,  but  now  he  was  deeply  touched. 
With  clairvoyant  sympathy  he  understood  that  the 
creature  who  now  stammered  a  servile  apology  had 
been  unable  to  bear  his  own  company.  It  was  the 
first  time  George  had  been  made  to  realize  the  terror 
of  loneliness.  He  put  out  his  hand  and  murmured 
something,  he  knew  not  what,  but  the  young  man 
was  only  alarmed,  and  at  the  first  stopping-place 
removed  himself. 

The  last  local  train  had  gone  when  George  reached 
Barstow,  but  he  was  able  to  cover  part  of  his 
journey  by  tram-car.  With  a  dead  heart  in  his 
breast,  he  fancied  that  the  few  passengers  looked 
at  him  compassionately.  It  was  as  if  he  had  only 


242  THE  CATFISH 

just  discovered  the  human  brotherhood  that  lies  be- 
neath the  indifference  of  individuals.  Even  the  boy 
conductor  who  put  him  off  at  the  journey's  end  in 
an  unfinished  suburb  did  so  reluctantly,  as  if  he 
were  loath  to  commit  a  fellow  creature  to  the  night 
from  the  warm  lamplight  of  the  car. 

When  beyond  the  farthest  lamp  the  sweet  May 
night  embraced  him,  with  stealing  odors  and  the 
sighing  of  trees,  George  at  last  knew  grief.  It 
was  as  if  he  had  come  back  to  childhood  after 
long  wandering  among  strangers,  and  with  every 
turn  of  the  familiar  road  the  sense  of  loss  was 
deepened.  But  since  the  loss  was  altogether  his, 
while  his  mother  was  at  rest,  his  tears  flowed  easily 
and  brought  relief.  Once  more  he  was  a  child 
going  crying  to  his  mother.  From  some  far  peace 
she  smiled  at  him  with  the  half-amused  tender- 
ness that  mothers  give  to  the  sorrows  of  childhood. 

Long  before  he  came  within  sound  of  the  Water- 
fall, he  could  make  out  the  dark  lift  of  the  Down 
where  the  church  lay.  It  seemed  to  him  that  a 
mild  light  shone  from  the  church.  At  first  he 
thought  it  must  be  fancy,  but  as  he  drew  nearer 
he  saw  that  the  light  was  real. 

Then  he  understood.  Following  custom,  they 
would  have  taken  his  mother  to  the  church,  and 


THE  CATFISH  243 

Walter  or  Amelia  would  keep  vigil.  That  relieved 
him  of  what  in  the  sanctity  of  his  grief  had  been  a 
vexation:  the  necessity  of  speech  with  the  living. 
Now  he  could  go  to  his  mother  in  the  church. 

Even  the  Waterfall  seemed  hushed,  as  if  not  to 
betray  him  as  he  moved  quickly  under  the  long 
dark  wall  of  the  sleeping  house.  Now  he  was 
walking  beside  the  Bourne,  and  the  church  was 
hidden  by  the  hanging  wood  that  presently  would 
become  the  harp  of  dawn. 

It  was  long  past  midnight  when  he  came  to  the 
church.  He  opened  the  jarring  gate  and  passed 
up  the  long  path  in  an  odor  of  yew.  Then  he 
saw  that  the  dim  light  that  he  had  seen  from  afar 
glowed  through  the  window  of  the  Resurrection, 
and  he  was  strangely  comforted.  But  when  he  en- 
tered the  porch  and  gently  turned  the  heavy  ring 
of  the  door,  he  found  that  the  door  was  locked. 
Fancying  he  heard  a  frightened  movement  within, 
he  desisted.  If  Amelia  were  there  alone  at  this 
hour  of  the  night,  she  would  naturally  be  alarmed. 

The  strange  thing  was  that,  after  the  first  dis- 
appointment, he  was  not  unduly  grieved  at  finding 
the  door  locked  against  him.  It  seemed  to  him 
somehow  just  that  even  at  the  last  he  should  be 
kept  from  the  full  confidence  that  he  had  denied 


244  THE  CATFISH 

his  mother.  He  could  fancy  her  knowing  him  there 
and  smiling  almost  mischievously  in  her  coffin;  as 
when  in  childhood  he  had  been  stood  in  the  corner, 
she  had  smiled  at  him  because,  though  the  immediate 
offense  was  expiated  by  tears,  the  time  for  official 
pardon  was  not  yet  come.  A  certain  playfulness 
in  the  strict  observance  of  rules  had  always  been 
her  strongest  hold  upon  him.  In  the  nearness  that 
he  now  felt,  the  locked  door  was  only  a  light  for- 
mality. 

After  an  interval  he  tried  the  door  again,  and 
murmured  "  Amelia "  against  the  wood,  but,  re- 
ceiving no  answer,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  his 
mother  was  really  alone.  That  pleased  him,  and 
he  now  felt  almost  happy.  Being  very  tired,  he 
lay  down  on  the  thick  rough  mat  in  the  porch, 
with  his  head  against  the  door,  and  half  dozed, 
with  light  dreams  in  which  the  sense  of  communi- 
cation was  intensified.  Soon  after  three  he  woke, 
to  find  that  the  space  of  sky  framed  by  the  outer 
arch  of  the  porch  had  lightened.  One  lark  began 
to  sing  from  an  infinite  height,  and  then  another, 
until  several  were  raining  down  their  music,  and 
very  soon  cuckoos  began  to  call  in  the  distance. 
Enchanted  by  the  beauty  of  the  morning,  he  rose 
to  stretch  his  chilled  limbs,  and  walked  a  little 


THE  CATFISH  245 

way  up  the  road.  The  night  was  lifting  like  a  gray 
curtain,  and  in  the  young  light  an  abandoned  quarry 
took  on  the  dignity  of  a  mountain  landscape.  Be- 
low, great  elms  stood  mistily  in  the  green  fields,  and 
the  white  road  curved  among  the  folds  of  the  land 
like  a  river  of  dreams.  Here  and  there  smoke  rose 
from  chimneys.  Close  at  hand  the  keen  air  was 
full  of  the  scent  of  lilacs  from  a  garden,  and  of 
white  broom  which  grew  along  the  edges  of  the 
quarry. 

Since  he  was  last  here  an  extension  of  the  railway 
had  been  opened  behind  the  church,  and  the  sharp 
contrast  between  old  and  new  seemed,  somehow, 
in  keeping  with  his  mood.  At  the  very  edge  of  the 
line  a  gray  farmhouse,  with  high  gables  and  the 
characteristic  Severnshire  chimneys,  stood  among 
tall  still  poplars.  In  the  distance  he  heard  a  train, 
and  he  waited  by  the  new  bridge  until  it  came 
rushing  by,  hot  life  in  that  exquisite  hour.  It  re- 
minded him  that  life  went  on,  and  he  knew  that 
his  life  was  to  be  more  gravely  happy  than  before. 
He  had  learned  the  meaning  of  "  Too  late,"  with 
its  moral  for  the  future. 

When  he  returned  to  the  church  the  window  of 
the  Resurrection  had  paled,  but  its  assurance  was 
in  his  heart.  He  waited  contentedly  in  the  awaken- 


246  THE  CATFISH 

ing  day  until,  as  he  expected,  Walter  and  Amelia 
came  up  with  Mr.  Mostyn  to  early  celebration. 
They  wondered  to  see  him  there,  but  in  that  at- 
mosphere explanations  were  soon  made.  Mr. 
Mostyn  had  not  allowed  Amelia  to  watch  after  mid- 
night. 

Admitted  at  last  to  the  presence  of  his  mother, 
George  knew  that  he  must  not  feel  remorse.  On 
either  side  of  the  flower-covered  coffin  the  great 
candles  burned  low  and  pale,  but  steadily.  It  was 
as  if  she  smiled.  In  the  vicarious  communion  he 
knew  that  the  official  pardon  had  been  given ;  there 
was  a  deeper  peace  between  them  than  when  they 
had  shared  the  elements  together. 

Everything  that  followed  was  unimportant  and 
easy  to  be  borne.  His  active  peace  was  answered 
by  the  stoicism  of  his  father,  and  the  imperative 
necessity  of  food  redeemed  the  banality  of  break- 
fast. They  broke  bread  together.  It  seemed  to 
George  that  whatever  emotion  his  father  felt  was 
expressed  in  the  vertical  line  between  his  brows; 
cut  now  as  if  with  a  chisel.  From  his  father  he 
learned  that  his  mother's  death  was  entirely  un- 
expected. Her  letter,  with  its  faint  appeal  and 
message  to  Darragh,  as  if  she  were  gathering  up 
the  ends  of  things,  must  have  been  inspired  by  a 


THE  CATFISH  247 

premonition;  Mr.   Tracy  did  not  even  know  that 
she  had  spoken  to  George  of  being  unwell. 

It  was  only  at  the  very  end  that  George  broke 
down  utterly.  The  falling  of  earth  on  the  coffin, 
the  material  reminder  of  irrevocable  parting, 
knocked  at  his  heart,  and  he  began  to  sob  hyster- 
ically. His  father,  standing  motionless,  with  the 
line  deepening  between  his  brows  as  he  stared 
across  the  grave,  put  his  arm  about  him.  In  the 
pressure  of  it  George  felt  support  craved  rather  than 
given,  and  that  steadied  him.  For  the  first  time 
in  his  life  he  knew  that  he  was  needed. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

FEELING  that  his  father  wanted  him  at  home, 
and  finding  that  Walter  had  the  same  idea, 
George  engineered  an  exchange  with  one  of  the 
Barstow  clerks,  without  the  appearance  of  making 
a  sacrifice.  He  was  struck  by  the  alteration  in 
his  father.  Outwardly  he  kept  up  the  stoical 
demeanor  that  made  him  look  like  a  Norse  hero, 
but  some  inner  support  seemed  lacking.  He  was, 
in  the  old  phrase,  "  a  stricken  man."  Husband  and 
wife  had  never  been  demonstrative  in  their  af- 
fection, there  was  little  real  understanding  between 
them,  and  she  was  by  far  the  weaker  of  the  two; 
and  yet  after  her  death  the  strong  man  gradually 
declined.  He  had  been  dependent  on  her  in 
ways  that  he  knew  nothing  about.  His  one  wish 
now  seemed  to  be  to  gather  his  family  about 
him.  George  observed  that,  though  he  made  no 
alteration  in  his  habits  in  respect  of  religion,  he 
was  very  anxious  that  nothing  should  interfere  with 
the  religious  exercises  of  his  children.  It  was  his 
offering  upon  the  altar  of  memory. 

248 


THE  CATFISH  249 

At  first  George  found  the  change  into  provincial 
life  amusing.  It  was  all  so  complete,  so  highly 
graded  and  organized;  so  under  the  eye  at  once, 
like  the  life  of  a  small  principality.  Barstow  had 
grown,  and  the  sharp  division  between  town  and 
country  was  dissolving  in  a  ring  of  suburbs,  in  which 
the  amenities  flourished.  Cleeve,  on  its  high  Down 
to  the  westward,  still  maintained  a  special  character, 
by  reason  of  a  retired  military  population  attracted 
by  the  waters  and  the  college,  and  beyond  Bourne- 
side  there  was  still  the  county;  but,  partly  through 
associations  formed  by  the  younger  generation  at 
the  college  and  the  high  schools,  Barstow  was 
climbing  up  into  Cleeve  and  planting  itself  out  in 
the  county.  In  the  last,  resistance  had  weakened 
at  the  very  core.  The  old  duke  was  dead,  and  the 
new  duchess  was  a  young  woman  of  ideas.  With 
some  humor,  she  a  little  neglected  the  county,  and 
corrupted  Cleeve  by  taking  a  house  there,  and 
organizing  concerts  and  other  entertainments  in 
the  assembly  rooms,  which  needed  the  support  of 
Barstow.  After  a  pause  of  resentful  astonishment, 
the  county  was  beginning  to  make  the  best  of  it 
by  recoiling  upon  Cleeve  and  taking  Barstow  in 
the  same  wave.  Called  by  the  court  to  Cleeve, 
it  was  rediscovering  Barstow,  with  a  notable  ad- 


250  (THE  CATFISH 

vantage  to  trade,  and  a  breaking  down  of  barriers 
between  the  two  places  that  might  otherwise  have 
persisted.  To  the  county  Cleeve  and  Barstow  were 
all  one,  and  Cleeve  could  not  afford  to  sacrifice 
the  social  gain  by  refusing  the  support  of  its  more 
commercial  neighbor.  The  new  railway  and  the 
shy  beginnings  of  motor-cars  made  access  con- 
venient, and  here  and  there  a  marriage  consum- 
mated the  friendly  relations  begun  at  school. 

Some  of  the  currents  and  cross-currents  deter- 
mined by  the  new  social  center  of  gravity  flowed 
through  the  bank,  and  from  them  and  the  con- 
versation of  his  brother  and  sister  George  formed 
his  conception  of  a  small  principality.  If  London 
had  not  yet  waked  up  to  full  self-consciousness  as 
a  whole,  Barstow  and  its  neighborhood  were  a  lit- 
tle too  wide-awake,  with  all  sorts  of  amusing 
phenomena. 

Both  Walter  and  Amelia  had  the  social  sense 
highly  developed,  and  they  now  found  themselves 
in  an  unsatisfactory  position.  The  Tracys  had 
settled  at  Bourneside  too  late  to  be  absorbed  into 
even  the  humbler  ranks  of  the  county  before  its 
awakening  to  Cleeve.  On  the  other  hand,  Bourne- 
side  was  cut  off  from  Cleeve,  not  only  by  the  whole 
breadth  of  Barstow,  but  by  the  outward  growth 


THE  CATFISH  251 

of  a  suburb.  Already,  gray  villas  with  slate  roofs 
and  freestone  bays  flanked  the  road  at  intervals 
on  either  side,  nearly  to  the  Barstow  end  of  what 
had  been  Gardiner's  field,  and  at  any  moment  the 
trams  might  come  that  way. 

Walter  and  Amelia  had  too  keen  a  sense  of  social 
values  to  resent  having  failed  of  the  county.  They 
positively  approved  the  delay  in  recognizing  new- 
comers, although  as  children  they  had  kicked  at 
the  exclusiveness  of  the  Archery  Club.  Besides, 
it  didn't  matter  now.  Since  the  Dibleys,  the 
boot-manufacturers,  had  taken  Upton  Court,  and 
Miss  Sherry,  of  Sherry  and  Dobbs,  had  married  into 
the  Purefoys,  of  Queenscote,  nobody  really  worried 
about  the  county.  But  Walter  and  Amelia  felt 
their  separation  from  Cleeve.  They  were  not 
snobbish,  but  they  liked  society.  At  Bourneside 
they  were  out  of  everything,  and  Bourneside 
was  going  to  be  spoiled,  anyhow.  Unlike  George, 
they  had  never  loved  Bourneside  for  its  own  sake, 
but  only  for  its  decent  seclusion,  which  was  now 
threatened.  Moreover,  both  Walter  and  Amelia 
had  formed  sentimental  alliances  in  Cleeve,  he 
with  a  daughter  of  the  navy,  she  with  a  captain 
of  engineers.  They  went  into  Cleeve  a  good  deal, 
and  were  free  of  its  amenities,  but  then  there  was 


252  THE  CATFISH 

the  bother  of  getting  home  again.  Cleeve  was  their 
destiny,  and  they  murmured  that  coming  to  Bourne* 
side  had  been  a  mistake. 

Father,  of  course,  was  hopeless.  He  thought  of 
nothing  but  cabbages.  By  this  time,  even  George 
was  prepared  to  admit  to  himself  —  though  not  to 
the  others  —  that  as  an  idealist  his  father  was 
unpractical.  He  had  commenced  landowner  at  the 
end  of  the  landowning  epoch.  Private  ownership 
in  land  might,  and  probably  would,  go  on  for  an- 
other generation  as  a  convenience,  but  it  was  no 
longer  worth  considering  as  an  ideal.  England 
was  not  going  to  be  saved  with  cabbages.  But 
even  a  convenience  may  be  husbanded  faithfully 
or  unfaithfully,  and  George  never  wavered  in  his 
admiration  of  his  father's  reverence  for  the  land. 
Particularly  since  he  had  gleaned  that,  before  he 
was  able  to  indulge  it,  he  must  have  made  some 
sacrifices  for  what  Mrs.  Glanville  called  the  "  bee 
in  his  bonnet." 

Whether  his  ideal  was  practical  or  not,  it  gave 
him  a  dignity  and  a  security  that  won  the  instinctive 
respect  of  even  those  who  regarded  him  as  a  bit  of 
a  crank  and  a  bit  of  a  bore.  Nor  was  it  entirely 
without  practical  result.  Mr.  Tracy  not  only  dealt 
faithfully  with  his  own  property,  but  by  precept  and 


THE  CATFISH  253 

example  he  had  greatly  improved  the  general  level  of 
agriculture  in  his  immediate  neighborhood.  It  was 
mainly  through  his  influence  that  local  farmers  were 
turning  their  attention  to  market-gardening,  and  it 
was  a  private  grief  to  him  that  salvation  by  means 
of  jam  had  been  proposed  by  a  Liberal  statesman, 
and  not  by  one  of  his  own  side.  To  encourage  the 
others  he  stolidly  sent  produce  from  Bourneside 
into  the  Barstow  market  —  to  the  disgust  of 
Walter,  even  carrying  it  himself  in  the  trap  when 
they  drove  to  the  bank  in  the  morning;  embroiled 
himself  with  the  railway  company  over  the  question 
of  rates;  gave  prizes  for  the  best-kept  allotments, 
and  was  chairman  of  the  local  Farmers'  Club. 

But  he  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  any 
association  that  was  not,  in  his  view,  severely 
practical.  He  persistently  declined  the  office  of 
magistrate,  and  took  no  part  in  politics.  "  I'm 
not  a  talker,"  was  his  answer  to  all  attempts  to 
enlist  him.  This  was  not  said  out  of  scorn  for 
talkers;  indeed,  one  of  his  most  endearing  traits 
to  George  was  his  pathetic  belief  in  the  wisdom  and 
honesty  of  those  who  represented  the  agricultural 
interest  with  their  tongues,  or,  as  he  said,  "  skir- 
mished in  front." 

Since  his  wife's  death,  however,  Mr.  Tracy  had 


254  THE  CATFISH 

begun  laboriously  to  compile  a  Yeoman's  Year 
Book  upon  the  results  of  his  experience,  and 
some  of  George's  happiest  hours  were  spent  in 
advising  upon  the  English  of  it.  George  doubted 
if  the  book  would  have  any  great  value  for  the 
future,  but  it  was  at  least  an  interesting  record  of 
the  past,  full  of  good  sense  and  acute  observations. 

Often  when  they  left  the  bank,  Walter  would 
remain  in  Cleeve  to  bicycle  home  at  a  late  hour 
with  Amelia ;  and  after  the  things  had  been  cleared 
away,  George  and  his  father,  spectacles  lending  a 
curious  mildness  to  the  latter,  would  sit  in  the 
lamplit  dining-room  over  their  literary  task. 
George's  moderate  skill  with  words  was  a  constant 
source  of  wonder  to  his  father. 

"  You  ought  to  have  been  a  writer,  George,"  he 
would  say,  with  slight  anxiety  at  the  idea  that 
George  was  being  wasted  in  the  bank,  and  George 
would  reassure  him  by  saying  that  there  was  plenty 
of  time  for  that. 

Sometimes,  Mr.  Tracy  would  talk,  not  sentimen- 
tally, but  in  a  tone  of  speculation,  about  his  wife. 

"You  seem  to  be  a  pretty  even  mixture,"  he 
said  one  evening ;  "  your  mother  was  romantic, 
while  I  have  always  been  very  practical.  I  can 
see  both  sides  in  you.  Your  mother  had  a  habit 


THE  CATFISH  255 

of  hoarding  up  useless  things  for  the  sake  of  their 
associations  —  letters,  ribbons,  your  first  shoes, 
flowers,  and  so  on.  I  found  a  whole  collection  of 
such  trifles.  In  some  cases  I  could  remember  the 
circumstances,  in  others  I  could  not.  There  were 
the  broken  remains  of  an  iris  wrapped  in  paper  and 
dated  May,  1881.  That  must  have  been  about  the 
time  you  went  to  St.  Piran's." 

"  It  was  a  flower  I  wouldn't  give  her,"  said 
George  quietly.  "  May  I  have  it?  " 

"  Certainly,  you  may,"  said  his  father.  "  I 
would  like  you  each  to  keep  some  little  thing  to 
remember  her  by.  ...  I  ought  to  have  grown  more 
flowers,"  he  added,  after  a  pause;  "she  loved 
flowers." 

Every  morning  George  drove  with  his  father 
into  Barstow.  Sometimes  Walter  accompanied 
them,  but  as  a  rule  he  bicycled  —  to  spare  the  pony, 
he  said,  but,  George  believed,  to  escape  the  indignity 
of  plums  or  tomatoes.  At  the  bank,  George  was 
in  a  more  confidential  position  than  he  had  occupied 
in  London,  but  less  in  touch  with  the  world.  Here 
he  was  definitely  the  son  of  one  of  the  partners, 
learning  the  business  in  all  its  branches  rather  than 
performing  any  particular  one  of  them.  Except 
for  the  light  it  gave  upon  the  general  problems 


256  THE  CATFISH 

that  interested  him,  he  found  the  work  unexciting 
and  largely  a  matter  of  routine,  but  Barstow  was 
a  new  and  absorbing  experience. 

Here  he  had  the  whole  scheme  of  things  under 
the  eye  at  once.  Barstow  being  a  port  and  a 
manufacturing  center  as  well,  he  was  able  to  follow 
the  fortunes  of  many  raw  materials  from  the  ship 
to  the  shop.  The  "  bales  of  merchandise  "  of  his 
childhood,  with  their  appeal  to  the  imagination, 
were  every-day  realities,  to  be  handled  on  the  quays 
and  estimated  with  the  more  precise  knowledge  of 
a  man.  As  Mr.  Tracy  said,  George  was  romantic; 
but  he  was  romantic  about  realities,  and  it  seemed 
to  him  that  most  of  the  transformations  between 
the  ship  and  the  shop  were  a  missing  of  possibilities 
and  a  degradation  of  values.  Color  and  richness 
from  East  and  West,  dumped  on  the  quays,  became 
flat  banality  in  the  windows.  Meanwhile  human 
beings  were  hungering  for  color  and  richness. 
He  was  reminded  of  the  Spanish  proverb: 
"  God  sends  the  food  and  the  devil  cooks  it,"  and  of 
the  saying :  "  Sad  to  think  that  in  a  few  years' 
time  all  these  fine  lads  would  be  frivolous  members 
of  parliament."  He  was  not  prepared  to  say  exactly 
where  the  degradation  took  place;  something  must 
be  allowed  for  the  difference  between  seeing  things 


THE  CATFISH  257 

in  bulk  and  in  detail,  and  in  the  transformation 
from  the  general  to  the  particular  some  loss  of 
quality  was  only  to  be  expected;  but  he  refused 
to  believe  that  the  finished  article  —  whether  it 
were  something  to  eat,  something  to  wear,  or  some- 
thing to  look  at  —  need  be  so  far  below  the  promise 
of  the  stuff. 

It  was  not  from  lack  of  human  capacity  in 
handling  the  stuff.  Down  here  he  had  better  op- 
portunities than  in  London  of  seeing  how  things 
were  done,  and  the  relations  between  one  branch 
of  industry  and  another.  He  spent  a  good  deal 
of  his  leisure  loafing  about  factories  and  work- 
shops and  talking  to  the  men,  and  he  was  often 
astonished  at  the  degree  of  skill  employed  in  various 
processes.  But  it  was  often  employed  in  sophisti- 
cation, not  necessarily  dishonest.  People  couldn't 
let  the  stuff  alone.  They  messed  it  up  with  alien 
flavors  or  "  took  the  plain  look  off  "  with  meaning- 
less decoration.  He  recalled  a  reflection  that  had 
come  into  his  head  when  he  watched  the  artist  paint- 
ing the  Waterfall;  the  alluring  richness  of  the 
colors  in  the  box,  their  poverty  when  spread  upon 
the  paper.  He  had  heard  Darragh  say :  "  Learn- 
ing to  paint  is  learning  what  not  to  do."  Well,  that 
seemed  to  apply  to  everything. 


258  THE  CATFISH 

Thinking  about  it,  he  was  struck  by  the  number 
of  apparently  unnecessary  people  engaged  in  dis- 
tribution. Each  acted  as  a  sort  of  filter,  setting 
a  slightly  lower  standard  than  the  preceding  one. 
You  had  a  better  choice  in  the  wholesale  dealer's 
than  in  the  retail  shop.  At  the  same  time,  there 
could  be  no  doubt  that  other  people  besides  himself 
were  conscious  of  the  degradation  of  values.  There 
were  the  advertisements  for  "  wholemeal "  bread, 
for  American  cereals,  "  containing  all  the  elements 
necessary  for  building,  nourishing  and  sustaining 
the  human  body,"  for  "  raw  "  silk  and  "  natural " 
wool.  Rightly  or  wrongly,  there  was  a  deep  human 
instinct  for  the  stuff  with  all  its  possibilities  re- 
tained. For  himself,  he  was  prepared  to  admit 
that  the  feeling  was  mainly  esthetic  —  romance  on 
the  quays,  banality  in  the  windows;  but  he  had 
a  strong  suspicion  that  the  esthetic  feeling  was 
as  good  a  practical  guide  as  any  other.  He  had 
observed,  among  other  things,  that  the  general 
tendency  of  mechanical  invention  was  toward  the 
direct  transmission  of  power;  to  tap  the  mysterious 
forces  of  nature  in  their  purity.  He  never  traveled 
in  a  trolley-car  but  he  felt  the  urgency  of  the 
heavens. 

Except  his  father,  George  had  no  intimate  com- 


THE  CATFISH  259 

panions,  though  he  made  plenty  of  acquaintances. 
He  joined  Walter's  club  in  Cleeve,  played  tennis 
and  cultivated  the  families  of  his  future  brother- 
and  sister-in-law.  He  was  not  conscious  of  hold- 
ing himself  aloof,  though  he  understood  from 
Amelia  that  he  was  considered  rather  supercilious. 
All  that  he  was  aware  of  was  that  he  liked  people 
better  at  work  than  at  play,  and  that  his  regard 
for  them  increased  in  proportion  as  they  were 
interested  in  their  jobs.  This  led  him  to  make 
friends  in  unexpected  places,  and  one  of  the 
humors  of  the  luncheon-hour  was  Walter's  look  of 
concern  at  his  brother's  queer  company  of  the 
moment.  Associations  that  would  have  passed  un- 
noticed in  London  were  glaring  upon  the  smooth 
organization  of  provincial  life. 

George  found  the  provincial  young  woman  of 
his  own  class  an  amusing  study.  In  so  far  as  she 
was  a  sportsman,  a  partner  at  tennis  or  dances,  he 
liked  her,  but,  though  noisily  asserting  the  con- 
trary, she  wouldn't  be  content  with  that.  Des- 
perately unsentimental,  she  had  nevertheless  the 
keenest  eye  for  those  relations  that  are  supposed 
to  be  based  on  sentiment.  In  speech,  dress  and 
manner,  she  ignored  the  distinctions  between  man 
and  woman,  but  never  forgot  that  he  was  a  possible 


260  THE  CATFISH 

husband  and  she  a  possible  wife.  Nor  did  this 
seem  to  proceed  from  a  wish  for  what  social  critics 
called  "  loveless  marriage  ".  Directly  an  engage- 
ment was  achieved,  sentiment  was  unloosed  with 
a  fervor  and  a  freedom  that,  as  illustrated  between 
Amelia  and  her  young  man  and  Walter  and  his 
young  woman,  filled  George  with  mingled  wonder 
and  embarrassment.  Assuming  that  the  young 
people  liked  sentiment,  the  idea  seemed  to  be: 
"  Business  first,  pleasure  afterward  " ;  and  at  the 
back  of  his  mind,  George  had  a  vague  feeling  that 
it  was  all  of  a  piece  with  the  tendency  to  think 
of  prices  before  values.  In  practise  it  bored  him. 
He  didn't  want  to  make  love,  but  still  less  did  he 
want  to  form  or  to  discuss  relations  in  which  love- 
making  was  an  afterthought. 

He  missed  Darragh  badly,  though  the  practise 
of  writing  to  him  and  to  Mrs.  Glanville  undoubtedly 
helped  him  to  formulate  his  ideas  on  things  in 
general.  Not  that  Darragh  was  very  responsive 
about  things  in  general,  but  that,  as  George  knew, 
he  read  George's  letters  to  Mary  Festing.  George 
would  have  liked  to  write  to  Mary,  but  could  not 
find  a  pretext  sufficiently  remote  from  the  wish  to 
have  a  letter  from  her.  He  could  not  bring  himself 
to  write:  "Dear  Mary."  She  sent  him  messages 


THE  CATFISH  261 

through  Darragh,  and  he  could  feel  that  she  was 
interested  in  what  he  said,  though  sometimes  her 
comments  gave  him  the  impression  that  she  thought 
he  was  trying  to  be  clever.  That  was  not  true, 
though,  short  of  the  simplicity  which  would  have 
given  too  much  of  himself  away,  he  had  to  be 
rather  elaborate  in  his  form  of  expression.  After 
all,  it  did  not  matter  what  Mary  thought  of  him  so 
long  as  he  heard  about  her.  Darragh  sent  him 
the  magazines  in  which  her  poems  and  stories  ap- 
peared ;  she  was  now  writing  her  first  novel. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

AT  Bourneside  the  person  he  saw  most  of  was 
Mr.  Mostyn.  A  little  grayer  and  stouter, 
the  vicar  was  still  rushing  about,  with  belt  flying 
wide,  and  bigger  pipes  and  heavier  boots  than  ever. 
Lately  a  new  poet  had  rediscovered  the  glory  of 
maleness,  and  Mr.  Mostyn  was  one  of  his  noisiest 
disciples.  He  exploded  with  the  slang  of  the 
barrack-room,  played  the  recruiting  sergeant  among 
the  young  men,  and  divided  his  congregation  into 
approving  and  disapproving  halves  by  flinging 
down  sanguinary  quotations  from  the  pulpit. 
George  liked  some  of  the  new  poet's  writings,  though 
it  struck  him  as  rather  odd  that  young  women  and 
clergymen  should  be  the  people  most  impressed  by 
his  glorification  of  maleness.  He  understood  that 
Darragh  and  Mary  were  not  so  impressed,  though 
they  admired  the  poet  for  other  reasons. 

George  being  the  only  young  man  of  his  class 
immediately  available  —  for  Walter  was  too  much 
occupied  in  Cleeve  —  he  was  "  hoicked  out  of  that," 
to  use  Mr.  Mostyn's  expression,  in  the  name  of  the 

262 


THE  CATFISH  263 

ne\v  gospel  to  captain  village  louts  at  cricket  on 
the  common.  He  didn't  mind  the  cricket,  and  he 
liked  some  of  the  louts,  but  he  wished  that  Mr. 
Mostyn  wouldn't  make  such  a  point  of  his  being 
a  public  schoolboy.  After  all,  cricket  had  been 
played  on  village  commons  for  several  generations. 
Then  Mr.  Mostyn  discovered  that  he  had  a  good 
baritone  voice,  and  enlisted  him  in  the  choir. 

This,  after  the  first  shyness,  became  a  pleasure. 
George  loved  music,  and  though  the  capacities  of 
the  choir  and  Mr.  Mostyn's  preference  for  a  "  hearty 
service  "  did  not  allow  any  great  subtlety  of  execu- 
tion, the  very  fact  of  singing  a  part  made  him  feel 
impersonal  and  so  able  to  let  himself  go.  The  near 
neighborhood  of  the  organ  gave  him  confidence; 
the  look  of  the  serried  pipes  recalled  the  fir-wood 
at  the  edge  of  the  Camp,  and  the  color  of  stained 
glass  was  oddly  one  with  sound.  In  this  atmos- 
phere emotion  became  a  relief  instead  of  an  em- 
barrassment. 

Soon  after  George  joined  the  choir  there  was 
a.  new  organist;  a  Mrs.  Lorimer,  whose  husband 
was  an  insurance  agent.  The  Lorimers  had  lately 
taken  part  of  the  dwelling-house  of  the  mill  between 
the  Waterfall  and  the  Grove,  and  people  said  that 
there  was  something  odd  about  them,  probably  be- 


264  THE  CATFISH 

cause  they  did  not  associate  with  their  neighbors. 
Mrs.  Lorimer  seemed  superior  to  her  husband,  and 
it  was  said  that  she  was  a  doctor's  daughter.     She 
was  a  good-looking  dark  woman  of  about  thirty, 
with  high  cheek-bones  and  a  pretty  Scotch  accent. 
Amelia  said  that  she  dressed  above  her  station. 
The  first  thing  that  George  noticed   about   Mrs. 
Lorimer  was  that  she  always  used  the  same  scent; 
it  was  pervasive  rather  than  powerful  and  aroused 
his  curiosity  by  suggesting  something  beyond.     He 
described  Mrs.   Lorimer  to  himself  as  a  lurking 
person;  but  compared  to  Mary  Festing  she  was 
a  lurking  warmth  instead  of  a  lurking  coolness. 
Little  as  he  knew  about  music,  he  recognized  that 
she  was  a  good  organist;  she  let  it  out  instead  of 
making  it,  was  the  way  he  described  her  playing. 
The  previous  organist  had  also  been  a  woman,  but 
until  now  it  had  never  seemed  as  if  there  were 
a  woman  in  the  chancel.     Mrs.  Lorimer  belonged 
to  the  atmosphere  created  by  the  colored  glass  and 
the  sound  of  the  organ. 

For  the  sermon  Mrs.  Lorimer  left  the  organ 
bench  and  sat  on  a  rush  chair  half-screened  by  a; 
curtain.  Occasionally  George  became  conscious 
that  she  was  looking  at  him  across  the  chancel, 
but  when  he  met  her  eyes  she  looked  away  without 


THE  CATFISH  265 

embarrassment,  so  that  he  concluded  it  was  merely 
the  accident  of  position.  But  once  she  maintained 
her  glance  for  a  second  or  two  with  an  expression 
that  he  could  not  interpret.  It  made  him  feel 
slightly  uncomfortable,  but  did  not  repel  him. 
After  that  he  was  conscious  of  trying  not  to  look  at 
Mrs.  Lorimer. 

So  far  he  had  not  spoken  to  her,  though  he  had 
listened  to  her  talking  to  Mr.  Mostyn  at  choir 
practise  on  Thursday  evenings.  Mrs.  Lorimer  had 
nothing  to  do  with  training  the  choir,  but  there 
were  good-humored  arguments  between  her  and  the 
vicar  about  the  choice  of  music.  Mr.  Mostyn 
wanted  "  all  British  "  music.  So  far  as  the  sing- 
ing was  concerned  he  more  or  less  had  his  way, 
but  he  could  not  persuade  Mrs.  Lorimer  to 
abandon  "  foreign  stuff "  for  her  voluntaries. 
The  foreign  stuff,  as  George  knew,  was  Bach,  Moz- 
art, and  occasionally,  to  his  delight,  Beethoven. 
These  discussions  at  the  end  of  choir  practise  in- 
terested George,  though  he  did  not  take  part  in 
them.  Usually  most  of  the  choir  had  gone,  and 
the  lamps  were  put  out,  leaving  only  the  candles 
at  the  organ,  and  producing  an  atmosphere  of  in- 
timacy in  which  Mr.  Mostyn's  maleness  and  Mrs. 
Lorimer's  femininity,  intensified  by  her  character- 


266  THE  CATFISH 

istic,  persistent  perfume  and  soft,  slightly  burring 
voice,  were  strongly  contrasted.  One  evening  she 
suddenly  appealed  to  George  for  support,  with: 
"  Isn't  it,  Mr.  Tracy?  "  On  the  preceding  Sunday 
she  had  played  for  the  offertory  at  choral  celebra- 
tion the  Ave  Verum  out  of  Mozart's  Requiem  Mass, 
and  the  vicar  quoted  it  as  an  example  of  the  music 
he  disliked.  George  agreed  with  Mrs.  Lorimer  that 
it  was  beautiful  and  appropriate.  Mr.  Mostyn 
said :  "  Oh,  he's  a  dreamer,"  and  Mrs  Lorimer, 
turning  away,  said,  without  emphasis,  "Ah,  he 
knows." 

George's  and  Mrs.  Lorimer's  way  home  was  in 
the  same  direction,  but  they  had  never  walked 
together.  Mrs.  Lorimer  left  the  churchyard  by  the 
gate  into  the  road,  either  alone  or  with  some  of 
the  young  women  who  sat  in  the  body  of  the  church 
for  choir  practise,  while  George  went  down  through 
the  vicarage  garden  with  Mr.  Mostyn,  sometimes 
going  into  the  vicarage  for  a  smoke  and  a  chat. 
Below  the  vicarage  the  two  ways  joined,  and  one 
October  night  on  reaching  the  corner  George  saw 
Mrs.  Lorimer  just  ahead  of  him.  He  caught  her 
up  and  she  said :  "  Oh,  it's  you,  Mr.  Tracy,"  as 
if  in  surprise,  though  he  was  inclined  to  believe 
that  she  had  loitered 


THE  CATFISH  267 

Going  down  the  hill  they  talked  about  Mr. 
Mostyn.  "Isn't  he  a  Goth?"  said  Mrs.  Lorimer, 
and  George  agreed,  though  he  felt  it  necessary  to 
add  something"  about  the  vicar's  good  qualities. 
Mrs.  Lorimer  said :  "  Oh,  of  course.  Please  don't 
think  that  I  don't  respect  Mr.  Mostyn.  What  I 
meant  was  that  he  has  no  sympathy  with  —  well, 
with  the  things  we  care  about." 

George  was  flattered  by  the  plural;  it  implied 
that  she  had  been  thinking  about  him.  Grateful 
for  the  opportunity,  he  began  to  talk  rather  im- 
pulsively about  the  music  he  loved,  mentioning  the 
concerts  he  had  been  to  in  London.  Mrs.  Lorimer 
listened  sympathetically,  murmuring :  "  Of  course, 
of  course,"  as  if  she  quite  understood  his  feelings. 
"  I  expect  you  are  rather  lonely,  down  here,"  she 
said,  and  then  he  suddenly  realized  that  he  was, 
though  he  said  that  he  found  plenty  of  things  to 
amuse  him. 

During  the  earlier  part  of  the  day,  and  the  day 
before,  it  had  rained  heavily,  and  when  they  reached 
the  bottom  of  the  hill  they  found  that  while  they 
had  been  in  church  the  Bourne  had  overflowed, 
and  for  twenty  yards  or  so  the  road  was  at  least 
ankle  deep  in  water.  If  George  had  been  alone  he 
would  have  splashed  through  gaily,  for  he  knew 


268  THE  CATFISH 

that  for  the  rest  of  the  way  home  the  ground  was 
higher.  It  would  be  more  than  an  hour  before  the 
flood  by  the  smithy  could  be  any  serious  depth. 

But  Mrs.  Lorimer  hesitated.  In  order  to  get 
home  dry-shod  she  would  have  to  make  a  detour 
across  fields.  George  felt  that  he  could  not  very 
well  desert  her  now,  but  he  was  not  keen  enough 
about  her  company  to  welcome  the  lengthened  walk 
in  the  dark.  Hardly  thinking,  he  said :  "  I'll  carry 
you  across." 

She  laughed  nervously,  and  said :  "  But  can 
you?" 

That  settled  it,  and  without  answering,  he 
stooped  and  picked  her  up.  It  pleased  him  that 
she  did  not  make  any  fuss,  or  show  any  fear,  real 
or  affected,  but  remained  passive  in  his  arms  with 
hers  lightly  resting  on  his  shoulders  as  he  splashed 
through  the  water,  which  was  nearly  up  to  his  knees 
at  the  deepest  part.  While  carrying  her  he  was 
conscious  of  trying  to  think  what  the  scent  she 
used  reminded  him  of,  but  it  escaped  him. 

"  How  strong  you  are ! "  she  said  when  he  put 
her  down.  He  laughed  awkwardly,  for  he  was  be- 
ginning to  feel  shy  now,  and  for  a  little  way  they 
walked  in  silence. 

"  I  often  wonder  what  vou  are  thinkin^  abort 


THE  CATFISH  269 

in  the  sermon,"  said  Mrs.  Lorimer  presently.  It 
was  near  enough  to  their  previous  conversation  not 
to  seem  unduly  personal,  and  George  said :  "  Oh, 
nothing  of  any  consequence.  As  Mr.  Mostyn  says, 
I'm  afraid  I  am  a  bit  of  a  wool-gatherer." 

She  made  a  little  sound  of  impatience  and  said: 
"  Ah,  he  doesn't  understand  you." 

The  implication  was  that  she  did,  but  George 
was  not  yet  quite  ready  to  take  full  advantage  of 
her  sympathy,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  walk  he  kept 
the  conversation  off  himself. 

When  they  parted,  just  above  the  smithy,  leaving 
her  only  the  high  field  opposite  the  Bourneside 
Orchard  to  walk  alone,  Mrs.  Lorimer  said: 

"  I  wish  you'd  let  me  try  your  voice,  some  time. 
I  believe  something  might  be  done  with  it." 

George  said  something  about  having  no  time,  but 
she  went  on,  steadily,  "  I  teach  music,  you  know 
-  not  singing,  but  the  piano.  But  I  know  enough 
about  singing  to  give  you  some  hints.  You  might 
come  to  the  church  before  choir  practise  —  or  I 
am  at  home  nearly  every  afternoon." 

Recognizing  that  she  was  not  asking  him  to  be- 
come a  paying  pupil,  George  felt  that  it  would  be 
ungracious  to  refuse,  and  he  said  he  would  go  to 
the  mill  the  next  Thursday  afternoon  —  when  he 


2;o  THE  CATFISH 

came  home  early  from  the  bank.  "  At  any  rate 
you  can  play  for  me,"  he  said. 

"  That  will  be  splendid,"  said  Mrs.  Lorimer. 
"  Well,  good  night.  Thank  you  for  preserving  me 
from  the  flood.  I  shall  have  to  call  you  Saint 
George." 

He  was  left  uncertain  whether  or  not  she  was 
making  fun  of  his  solemnity,  and  whether  or  not 
he  liked  her.  He  felt  vaguely  that  there  was  some- 
thing wrong  about  Mrs.  Lorimer,  but  when  he  tried 
to  find  a  reason  it  was  only  because  she  was  so 
different  from  Mary  Festing,  who  was  the  only 
other  woman  who  had  aroused  his  curiosity.  Mary 
would  not  have  let  him  carry  her  through  the  water. 
Not  that  she  would  have  turned  back;  she  would 
have  splashed  through  the  water  at  his  side.  The 
thing  about  Mary  was  that  she  would  go  anywhere 
with  you  at  any  time  without  regard  for  conse- 
quences or  criticism.  It  was  only  about  herself 
that  she  would  be  nice.  Then  he  said :  "  Bother 
Mary  Festing ! "  He  had  never  held  a  woman  so 
close  before,  and  the  memory  was  pleasant;  he 
fancied  that  the  scent  of  her  was  still  upon  him. 

When  he  went  in  he  spoke  to  the  others  about 
having  had  to  walk  through  the  water,  but  he 
said  nothing  about  having  carried  Mrs.  Lorimer. 


THE  CATFISH  271 

Somehow  he  felt  sure  that  she  would  not  speak  of 
it  to  anybody,  and  the  thought  pleased  him.  He 
went  to  bed  with  the  sense  of  having  had  a  little 
adventure. 

On  Thursday  afternoon  Mrs.  Lorimer  was  so 
relentlessly  professional  about  his  voice  that  he 
felt  a  little  humiliated,  as  if  he  had  romanced  about 
her.  "  No,  no,  stupid,"  she  said,  with  evident  un- 
consciousness of  taking  a  liberty ;  "  you  must  breathe 
deeper.  Watch  me.  Now,  put  your  hands  here." 

There  was  not  a  trace  of  self -consciousness  in 
her  as  she  held  his  hands  to  her  sides.  With  respect, 
he  knew  that  he  was  dealing  with  that  savage 
utilitarian,  the  artist. 

When  she  left  the  piano,  however,  her  manner 
changed.  It  was  as  if  she  had  put  aside  a  person- 
ality with  which  she  could  not  trifle.  Her  eyes, 
which  had  been  expressionless,  now  deepened  and 
darkened  with  the  look  he  could  not  interpret,  and 
her  voice,  which  had  been  imperative,  now  softened 
into  a  lazy  confidential  murmur,  with  pretty  un- 
expected stresses,  as  she  spoke  of  the  blank  Phi- 
listinism of  country  life. 

"  How  you  can  stand  it  after  London,  I  don't 
know,"  she  said. 

Remembering  the  limited  circumstances  of  her 


272  THE  CATFISH 

husband,  he  did  not  like  to  ask  her  how  she  could. 
But  he  wondered  why  so  good  a  musician,  married 
or  not,  should  live  in  the  country.  He  would  have 
supposed  that  she  could  make  more  money  in  town, 
but  she  did  not  seem  to  have  any  pupils  in  Barstow. 
The  cottage  which,  though  quaking  in  sympathy, 
was  really  distinct  from  the  mill,  with  a  separate 
entrance,  indicated  slipshod  housekeeping  with  a 
taste  for  pretty  things.  There  were  too  many 
rags,  he  thought.  The  cretonne  of  the  couch  under 
the  little  curtained  window  which  spied  upon  the 
deep  glide  of  the  Bourne  from  under  the  bridge, 
wanted  washing.  Mrs.  Lorimer  herself,  though 
attractively,  was  not  very  neatly  dressed.  Watch- 
ing her,  he  thought  that  she  dressed  by  instinct, 
as  Mrs.  Glanville,  with  the  help  of  Kate  Flanders, 
dressed  with  art;  she  was  emphatically  but  rather 
crudely  feminine. 

She  was  interesting,  however;  intelligent  outside 
her  own  subject,  and,  in  a  loose  way,  well  ac- 
quainted with  what  was  going  on  in  art  and 
literature.  Those  were  the  "  Yellow  Book  "  days, 
and  her  tastes  seemed  to  lie  in  that  atmosphere. 
She  spoke  with  scorn  of  the  muscular  school  which 
excited  the  admiration  of  Mr.  Mostyn.  George 
did  not  pretend  to  be  a  critic,  but  he  felt  that  there 


THE  CATFISH  273 

must  be  good  on  both  sides,  and  suspected  that, 
outside  music,  Mrs.  Lorimer's  judgment  was  not 
very  sound.  It  was  the  queerness  rather  than  the 
goodness  that  appealed  to  her.  He  wished  that 
Darragh  was  there  to  put  his  ideas  into  words. 
On  second  thought,  he  did  not  wish  that  Darragh 
were  there;  one  side  of  him  was  quite  at  home 
with  Mrs.  Lorimer.  She  was  the  first  woman  he 
had  talked  to  since  he  left  London.  Amelia  and 
her  friends  in  Cleeve  were  pleasant  and  amusing, 
but  they  were  not,  in  any  sense  of  the  word  that 
mattered,  women. 

Mrs.  Lorimer  persuaded  him  to  stop  to  tea, 
which  was  got  by  a  sulky,  dirty  little  maid,  and 
before  they  had  finished  Mr.  Lorimer  came  in.  He 
was  a  worried-looking  man,  apparently  several 
years  older  than  his  wife,  and  obviously  not  her 
match  in  general  intelligence.  George  did  not  like 
him.  He  seemed  glad  to  see  George;  rather  too 
glad  for  social  ease,  though  Mrs.  Lorimer  kept  his 
effusiveness  within  reasonable  bounds.  It  was  he 
and  not  his  wife  who  hoped  that  Mr.  Tracy  would 
come  again;  "the  wife,"  as  he  called  her,  was 
rather  at  a  loss  for  society. 

George  wished  that  there  were  not  a  Mr.  Lorimer. 
He  was  interested  in  Mrs.  Lorimer  and,  whatever 


274  THE  CATFISH 

her  shortcomings,  she  knew  exactly  how  to  behave 
in  her  rather  anomalous  position.  At  choir  practise 
that  evening  she  made  no  difference  in  her  manner 
to  him  as  a  result  of  the  afternoon's  visit,  though 
she  casually  remarked  to  Mr.  Mostyn  that  she  had 
tried  Mr.  Tracy's  voice  and  found  it  promising, 
"  if  you  don't  encourage  him  to  bellow."  George 
began  to  take  notice  of  how  other  people  spoke 
of  Mrs.  Lorimer.  He  gathered  that  she  >was  not 
generally  liked,  though  her  playing  was  appreciated. 
The  only  person  who  seemed  to  find  her  interesting 
as  a  woman  was  Mrs.  Mostyn.  Once  when  the 
vicar  had  come  home  grumbling  at  "  Mrs.  Lorimer's 
fandangos  "  on  the  organ,  his  wife  said,  from  the 
sofa: 

"  That's  temperament,  my  dear  Swipes.  We're 
not  all  so  fatiguingly  healthy  in  our  tastes  as  you 
are.  Mrs.  Lorimer  is  a  dear,  grubby,  perverse 
thing.  I'm  sure  she  has  a  darling  vice  of  some 
sort.  Don't  you  think  so,  George  ?  " 

George  said  he  didn't  know  about  that,  but  that 
he  liked  Mrs.  Lorimer's  playing.  You  couldn't 
talk  seriously  to  Mrs.  Mostyn;  she  was  clever,  but 
too  lazy  to  think  what  she  meant  so  long  as  it 
sounded  shocking.  Altogether,  though  it  seemed 
to  him  rather  a  pity  that  a  woman  like  Mrs.  Lorimer 


THE  CATFISH  275 

should  be  left  without  society,  he  did  not  see  how 
anybody  could  help  it. 

The  slight  differences  that  Mrs.  Lorimer  made 
between  her  public  and  private  manner  to  him 
were  not  more  than  subtly  flattering  to  his  intelli- 
gence. It  was  tacitly  assumed  that  they  had  tastes 
in  common.  It  was  tacitly  assumed,  also,  that 
Mrs.  Lorimer  should  loiter  on  her  way  home  from 
choir  practise  so  that  he  generally  caught  her  up 
at  the  corner.  She  took  him  for  granted  in  a 
way  that  pleased  without  disturbing  him.  Com- 
paring her  with  Mary  Festing,  now  unwillingly,  he 
said  that  it  was  a  different  side  of  him  she  took  for 
granted;  a  side  that  Mary,  by  temperament,  could 
know  nothing  about  and  would  rather  despise  if 
she  could.  Occasionally  he  called  at  the  cottage  on 
Thursday  or  Saturday  afternoons,  and  got  Mrs. 
Lorimer  to  play  to  him.  On  Saturday  Mr.  Lorimer 
was  generally  at  home,  wrestling  pathetically  with 
a  dank  and  overgrown  garden  that  merged  into 
the  Grove;  and  if  George's  visits  were  more  often 
on  Thursday  than  Saturday,  it  was  only  because 
he  found  Mr.  Lorimer's  effusive  hospitality  rather 
tiresome. 

With  familiarity,  the  little  quaking,  overcrowded 
room,  with  its  characteristic  lurking  odor  and  mu- 


276  THE  CATFISH 

sical  associations,  began  to  haunt  him.  It  had 
mystery.  He  found  himself  looking  oftener  at  Mrs. 
Lorimer  across  the  chancel  and  wondering  about 
her.  There  was  a  curious  contrast  between  her 
harsh  cheek-bones  and  soft  mouth  with  its  slightly 
ashamed  expression.  If  she  caught  his  eyes,  now, 
her  own  answered  them,  and  sometimes  she  dis- 
creetly smiled  before  she  turned  away.  Occasional 
personalities  seemed  to  arise  naturally  out  of  their 
tacit  understanding.  Mrs.  Lorimer  said :  "  I  was 
quite  right  to  call  you  Saint  George.  You  are  so 
English  in  type,  and  the  window  gives  you  a  golden 
halo,"  and  once  in  passing  she  lightly  brushed  his 
hair  with  her  hand. 

One  December  afternoon  when  he  called  at  the 
cottage  he  found  her  restless.  She  made  one  or 
two  attempts  to  play  to  him,  but  her  attention  wan- 
dered, and  she  said,  finally :  "  No,  let's  talk." 
Conversation  was  not  a  success,  however.  She 
knelt  before  the  fire,  with  her  back  to  him,  and 
aimlessly  stirred  between  the  bars.  Her  uneasiness 
reacted  upon  him;  until  now  she  had  always  been 
self-possessed,  though  he  was  often  vaguely  dis- 
turbed in  that  room.  Now  he  wanted  to  go  and 
he  wanted  to  stay. 

When,  with  an  effort,  he  rose,  she  said :     "  Do 


THE  CATFISH  277 

stop  to  tea.  You'll  have  to  help  me  to  get  it, 
though,"  she  added  with  a  laugh ;  "  Lizzie  has  gone 
home." 

He  stayed.  In  putting  cups  on  the  table  their 
hands  touched,  and  they  laughed  without  reason. 
Over  their  tea  they  were  both  silent,  and  they 
avoided  each  other's  eyes.  The  meal  was  a  mere 
pretense,  though  she  spasmodically  pressed  him 
to  eat  and  drink.  He  smoked  a  cigarette  while 
she  feverishly  bundled  the  tea-things  into  the 
kitchen.  They  carried  on  a  broken  conversation  in 
unnaturally  loud  voices  through  the  open  door. 
When  she  returned  to  the  sitting-room,  he  stood 
up,  and  said  he  really  must  go. 

"Stay  a  few  minutes  longer,"  she  said;  "I — " 
but  left  the  sentence  unfinished. 

George  hesitated.  "  Well  — "  he  began,  but  for- 
got what  he  was  going  to  say.  She  laughed,  picked 
up  a  book,  put  it  down  again,  and  came  over  to 
where  he  stood  by  the  window. 

"  Do  sit  down,"  she  said,  and  put  out  her  hand 
as  if  to  push,  but  clutched  instead.  The  trembling 
floor  weakened  him.  He  made  some  inarticulate 
sound,  and  she  swayed  against  him,  leaning  heavily. 
For  a  moment  he  remained  passive  and  then  awk- 
wardly put  his  arm  about  her. 


278  THE  CATFISH 

"What  is  it?"  he  murmured  huskily. 

"  You  —  you  know,"  she  gasped,  with  her  fore- 
head on  his  shoulder. 

"  I  must  go,"  he  whispered,  and  half  turned. 
But  she  had  him  now,  and  straining  down  his  head, 
with  hot  lips  greedily  drank  of  his  youth. 


AFTERWARD  she  cried,  and  called  herself 
a  bad  woman.  But  he,  in  the  belief  that 
he  had  taken  and  not  given,  protested.  She  had 
made  a  king  of  him.  Kneeling  at  her  side  with 
his  arms  about  her,  he  poured  out  in  broken  en- 
dearments the  passion  she  had  awakened  and  fed. 
If  her  husband  had  come  in  then,  George  would 
have  claimed  her  exultantly.  She  had  finally  to 
send  him  away. 

At  last  he  had  realized  himself.  Now  he  knew 
the  meaning  of  everything;  his  childish  dreams  and 
aspirations,  the  vague  troubles  of  his  adolescence, 
the  suppressed  curiosity  of  his  manhood.  This  was 
the  secret  of  the  Grove,  and  he  could  imagine  that 
the  thunder  of  the  Waterfall  was  the  vain  threat 
of  jealous  powers  to  frighten  him  from  its  dis- 
covery- He  had  found  the  synthesis  of  all  his  na- 
ture. Inevitably  he  thought  of  Mary  Festing  in 
her  cold  aloofness,  and  it  was  with  a  feeling  of 
triumph.  He  half  wished  that  she  could  know. 

If  it  were  not  love  it  was  so  mixed  with  grati- 
279 


280  THE  CATFISH 

tude  that  it  had  for  him  all  the  effects  of  love. 
Slowly  roused,  he  was  an  ardent  lover,  and  his 
mistress  had  to  teach  him  discretion.  She  was  an 
artist  in  depravity  and  made  him  feel  that  their 
passion  was  somehow  part  of  the  mysteries  in  which 
they  were  first  associated.  Even  the  meaning  of 
the  sanctuary  was  intensified  for  him.  And  with 
the  sense  of  completion,  of  life  unified,  there  was 
the  piquancy  of  contrast;  their  traffic  of  eyes  during 
the  sermon  was  discreet  as  much  out  of  reverence 
as  from  fear  of  discovery,  and  there  was  a  thrill 
in  keeping  at  bay  in  moments  of  devotion  the  secret 
of  the  quaking  scented  room. 

He  knew  that  he  was  sinning,  of  course;  he  had 
no  theories  to  justify  himself,  but  that  only  gave 
depth  to  his  passion.  It  was  all  sad,  mad,  bad  and 
glorious.  He  could  imagine  himself  Lancelot,  now, 
with  full  conviction.  His  relations  with  other  peo- 
ple were  improved;  they  said  he  had  waked  up 
wonderfully,  and  was  more  human.  Nobody  sus- 
pected, though  he  took  a  daring  delight  in  speaking 
of  Mrs.  Lorimer.  He  would  take  her  side  boldly 
in  arguments  with  the  vicar,  and  sometimes  on  leav- 
ing the  church  after  choir  practise  she  would  walk: 
with  them  through  the  vicarage  garden.  It  seemed 
natural  that  George  should  see  her  home. 


THE  CATFISH  281 

Her  character  kept  the  thing  above  a  mere  in- 
dulgence of  the  flesh.  Her  talent  for  music  was  too 
real  to  have  been  employed  as  a  lure,  and  he  re- 
mained impressed  by  her  gravity  when  she  played. 
If  he  had  not  loved  music,  he  would  have  been 
jealous  of  her  playing;  it  was  her  conscience.  Not 
that  she  was  too  easy  in  her  abandonment.  She 
would  refuse  him,  or  yield  after  protest,  though 
always  unreservedly.  Sometimes  he  found  her 
oddly  agitated,  unnaturally  flushed  and  uncertain  in 
her  temper. 

He  did  not  consider  what  he  should  do  if  their 
guilt  were  discovered,  though  he  knew  that  he 
would  not  shirk  the  consequences.  What  precau- 
tions he  took  at  her  desire  were  less  for  safety  than 
because  they  increased  his  feeling  of  romance.  He 
liked  to  approach  her  cottage  through  the  Grove,  to 
look  for  the  scarf  at  the  little  window  overlooking 
the  Bourne  which  told  him  that  she  would  be  alone, 
before  he  crossed  the  little  ivied  arch  of  a  forgot- 
ten builder.  It  must  have  been  made  for  some 
lover's  approach,  he  thought. 

The  end  was  brutally  sharp.  One  evening,  when 
he  was  walking  home  with  Walter  from  dinner  at 
a  neighbor's,  Walter  said,  apropos  to  nothing : 

"Heard  about  Mrs.  Lorimer?" 


282  THE  CATFISH 

George  braced  himself  in  the  dark  and  said  qui- 
etly: 

"No;  what?" 

"  She  went  to  give  a  lesson  to  Milly  Matthews, 
and  she  was  blind." 

"  Blind !  "  echoed  George,  halting  in  the  road. 

"  Drunk,  you  ass,"  said  Walter  composedly. 

"  I  don't  believe  it,"  said  George  fiercely. 

"  It  was  a  shock  to  me,"  said  Walter.  "  I  rather 
liked  her,  and  thought  that  the  women  might  have 
stretched  a  point  to  make  her  more  comfortable 
here.  But  it's  no  good  now.  She  can't  be  let  into 
the  church  again  —  not  to  play.  People  wouldn't 
stand  it.  Fleetwood  suspected  her  some  time  ago, 
and  spoke  to  Mostyn  about  it,  but  they  agreed  that 
so  long  as  she  behaved  decently  it  wasn't  fair  to 
do  or  even  say  anything." 

George's  first  impulse  had  been  to  tell  Walter  that 
he  was  talking  about  the  woman  he  loved,  but  he 
saw  now  that  anything  he  said  could  only  harm 
her.  Accepting  his  silence  as  natural,  since  he  had 
frankly  expressed  an  interest  in  Mrs.  Lorimer,  Wal- 
ter went  on,  compassionately: 

"Of  course  it's  an  old  story.  Mostyn  went 
down  to  see  Lorimer,  and  the  poor  little  rat  told 
him  all  about  it.  She  keeps  quiet,  and  then  she 


THE  CATFISH  283 

breaks  out.  They've  shifted  about  from  place  to 
place  —  to  make  a  fresh  start.  Where  they  were 
last  a  young  swine  of  a  farmer  used  to  take  her 
whisky." 

"For  God's  sake  shut  up,"  said  George  in  des- 
peration. 

"  Sorry,  old  chap,"  said  Walter  penitently.  "  I 
forgot  you  were  a  pal  of  hers.  I'm  sure  Lorimer 
must  be  grateful  to  you  for  being  friendly  and  taking 
her  out  of  herself.  Perhaps  if  more  people  had 
done  the  same  she  might  have  kept  straight.  But 
one  never  knows,  in  cases  like  that.  Mostyn  wants 
to  get  her  into  a  home." 

How  much  or  how  little  her  vices  were  mingled 
George  could  not  know.  But  he  knew  that  he  had 
lent  his  manhood  to  shame.  A  dozen  little  peculi- 
arities in  her  behavior  were  now  explained :  what 
was  beyond  her  perfume  stank  in  his  nostrils. 
Rightly  or  wrongly,  he  saw  himself  the  dupe  of  the 
bottle.  In  spite  of  his  degradation  he  was  loyal 
to  what  he  could  not  now  pretend  to  be  love,  and 
the  next  day  he  extended  his  luncheon  hour  to 
hurry  out  to  the  cottage,  risking  the  chance  of  Mr. 
Lorimer's  being  at  home.  He  was  not  at  home, 
but  she  refused  to  see  George,  sending  a  message 
by  the  little  maid  that  she  was  unwell.  Then  he 


284  THE  CATFISH 

wrote,  saying  that  he  must  see  her.  She  did  not 
answer,  and  he  went  to  the  cottage  again.  This 
time  the  maid  gave  him  a  note,  evidently  kept  in 
readiness.  "Why  do  you  persecute  me?  For 
pity's  sake  leave  me  alone.  I  hope  I  have  not 
harmed  you,  and  I  am  sure  nobody  suspects/'  Ap- 
parently as  an  afterthought  she  added :  "  I  shall 
never  regret." 

Nor,  when  the  first  misery  was  over,  did  he; 
and  always  in  his  thoughts  of  her,  shame  was  min- 
gled with  a  feeling  of  gratitude  that  he  could  neither 
explain  nor  justify.  But  for  the  time  he  suffered 
the  full  punishment  of  his  guilt.  As  is  usual  in 
such  cases,  there  were  now  plenty  of  people  be- 
sides Doctor  Fleetwood  who  had  suspected  Mrs. 
Lorimer's  habit,  and  possibly  to  explain  their  having 
neglected  her,  they  spoke  of  what  they  had  noticed. 
George's  interest  in  her  had  been  open  enough  to 
make  him  a  natural  recipient  of  these  confidences; 
and  he  was  exposed  to  the  humiliation  of  being 
treated  as  a  chivalrous  and  quixotic,  though  rather 
an  unsuspecting  person.  His  bitterest  moment  of 
all  was  on  the  day  when  the  contents  of  the  Lori- 
mer's cottage  were  sold.  Mr.  Lorimer  had  been 
transferred  by  his  company  to  a  new  district.  His 


THE  CATFISH  285 

wife  had  already  gone,  but  he  remained  to  settle 
up  affairs.  George  met  him  carrying  some  books 
that  had  been  reserved  from  the  sale.  Lorimer  did 
not  speak,  but  the  sight  of  him,  so  broken  and  yet 
so  patiently  prepared  to  make  a  fresh  start,  was 
almost  more  than  George  could  bear.  Only  com- 
mon-sense kept  him  from  going  up  to  the  man 
and  confessing  that  he  had  wronged  him. 

The  natural  result  of  George's  remorse  was  a 
reaction  to  the  point  of  view  expressed  by  Mr. 
Mostyn.  He  now  had  an  exaggerated  respect  for 
healthy  Philistinism.  In  his  arrogance  he  had  mis- 
judged these  noisy  people  who  played  games  and 
mocked  at  temperament.  His  dreams  had  only  led 
him  astray.  He  distrusted  all  his  instincts :  his  love 
of  nature,  his  critical  speculations  about  a  world 
that  was,  after  all,  a  world  of  clean  straight  fellows, 
who  got  things  done  to  the  best  of  their  powers. 
The  Grove  was  now  the  place  of  Rahab's  window; 
even  his  religious  emotions  were  tainted  with  the 
associations  of  sin.  Fortunately  this  mood  did  not 
last  long;  what  helped  to  weaken  it  was  the  re- 
flection that  even  Mr.  Mostyn  seemed  to  have  a 
sentimental  tolerance  for  the  irregular  alliances  of 
clean,  straight  young  Englishmen  —  with  a  subject 


286  THE  CATFISH 

race.  He  did  not  approve  in  so  many  words,  but 
his  quotations  from  his  favorite  poet  indicated  that 
he  thought  them  rather  finer  fellows  for  their  hu- 
man weakness,  and  that  the  fair  heathen  were  hon- 
ored by  their  attentions.  Then  George  went  with 
Walter  and  Amelia  and  their  beloved  to  a  musical 
play  at  the  Barstow  Theater,  which  dealt  with  the 
complications  of  a  naval  officer  between  a  dusky 
daughter  of  the  East  and  a  sweet  English  girl.  His 
companions  wept  in  sympathy,  but  George  was  in- 
furiated. The  picture  of  the  Servian  woman  still 
worked  in  his  imagination. 

Out  of  it  all  emerged  with  triumphant  though 
now  forbidding  clearness  the  image  of  Mary  Fest- 
ing.  That  kept  him  from  becoming  cynical.  Mary, 
and  Mary  only,  was  the  measure  of  his  guilt.  Be- 
fore, she  had  been  set  apart  from  passion;  now 
she  was  sacred  from  his  love.  He  could  never 
touch  her  cool  hand  again  without  the  sense  of 
profanity;  never  meet  her  grave  eyes  with  even 
the  courage  of  dissimulation.  Sometimes  he 
dreamed  that  she  knew ;  she  floated  moon-like  over 
the  fir-trees,  with  hands  idle  in  her  lap  and  tears 
falling  silently  from  her  bowed  face,  while  his 
mother  cried  under  the  earth,  and  a  scarlet  window 
burned  in  the  recesses  of  the  Grove.  It  was  only 


THE  CATFISH  287 

when  he  thought  of  Mary  and  his  mother  that  he 
came  near  to  hating  the  woman  with  whom  he  had 
stained  the  womanhood  he  loved. 

There  were  Darragh's  letters  with  news  of  Mary 
to  remind  him  that  it  was  not  his  instincts  and 
emotions,  but  his  character  that  had  betrayed  him. 
Darragh  and  Mary  lived  innocent  in  a  world  where 
such  instincts  and  emotions  were  allowed  full  play, 
•were  the  stuff  of  their  trade.  They  had  for  com- 
panions men  and  women  who  flouted  or  evaded 
the  conventions  by  which  those  instincts  and  emo- 
tions were  controlled;  but,  without  shrinking,  and 
often  with  sympathy  for  the  particular  case,  they 
kept  their  heads.  Mary's  novel  dealt  with  an  irreg- 
ular passion,  and  Darragh's  letters  were  enough  to 
show  that  no  speculation  was  feared  between  them. 
It  did  not  occur  to  George  that  some  excuse  might 
be  found  for  him  in  the  fact  that  he  had  not,  like 
Mary  and  Darragh,  a  trade  in  which  the  whole  of 
him  could  be  expressed,  as  also  in  the  fact  of  exile 
from  anything  like  intelligent  female  society.  With 
Mrs.  Glanville's  house  open  to  him  he  would  not 
have  consorted  with  village  organists. 

When  George  was  five  and  twenty  his  father  died, 
and  so  his  last  companion  was  gone.  Mr.  Tracy 
had  been  ailing  for  some  time,  but  the  end  came 


288  THE  CATFISH 

with  a  suddenness  that  seemed  appropriate.  A 
chill  made  acute  the  malady  that  had  been  chronic, 
and  the  strong  man  drove  home  to  his  bed.  From 
the  first  he  knew  that  he  was  going  to  die,  and  knew 
it  with  a  startled  indignation  that  reminded  George 
of  a  noble  animal  shot  from  behind.  Pain  made 
him  alert  and  he  sat  up  in  bed,  with  the  line  deep- 
ening into  a  cleft  between  his  brows,  while  he  har- 
assed the  household  with  precise  directions  about 
his  affairs.  When  Doctor  Fleetwood  told  him  to  lie 
down,  and  murmured  hopes  of  recovery,  Mr.  Tracy 
called  him  an  old  fool. 

One  thing  that  bothered  him  was  the  disposition 
of  Bourneside.  He  knew  that  George  loved  the 
place  and  Walter  did  not,  but  his  passionate  belief 
in  the  wisdom  of  his  country's  laws  and  traditions 
would  not  allow  him  to  will  it  away  from  his  elder 
son.  Walter  would  gladly  have  received  an  equiva- 
lent in  the  division  of  his  father's  interest  in  the 
bank,  but  he  dared  not  say  so.  A  dozen  times  a 
day  Mr.  Tracy  called  the  two  young  men  to  his 
room  and,  with  an  eye  upon  George  for  witness, 
impressed  upon  Walter  his  duties  to  the  estate. 
On  the  third  day  of  his  illness  George  and  Walter 
were  at  supper,  leaving  Amelia  with  the  nurse,  when 
there  came  a  hammering  on  the  floor  above.  They 


THE  CATFISH  289 

hurried  to  the  sick-room.  Still  clutching  the  stick 
•with  which  he  had  hammered  on  the  floor,  Mr. 
Tracy  was  able  to  say,  "  Don't  sell  a  yard  of  it! " 
before  he  sank  into  the  coma  from  which  he  did 
not  wake. 

It  was  during  the  period  of  depression  following 
his  father's  death  that  George  met  Mary  Festing 
again.  Though  now  nominally  a  partner  in  the 
bank  he  was  not  yet,  nor  did  he  wish  to  be,  ad- 
mitted to  the  full  responsibilities  of  directorship. 
He  did  his  work  automatically,  with  a  growing  dis- 
taste, and  was  glad  of  any  opportunity  to  fulfill 
commissions  outside  routine.  Some  development 
of  the  London  business  needed  the  report  of  an 
interested  person,  and  George  was  asked  to  see 
to  it.  For  some  reason  or  other  he  wrote  to 
Eleanor  Markham,  telling  her  that  he  would  be  in 
London,  and  she  asked  him  to  spend  the  week-end 
at  Holmhurst. 

On  the  Saturday  afternoon  he  was  just  about  to 
take  his  ticket  at  Victoria  when  he  became  aware 
that  Mary  Festing  was  standing  beside  him.  The 
sight  of  her,  so  cool  and  serene  in  blue  linen  with 
a  white  scarf  about  her  shoulders,  affected  him 
strangely.  He  had  not  been  thinking  about  her, 
he  had  not  told  either  Darragh  or  Mrs.  Glanville 


29o  THE  CATFISH 

that  he  was  coming  to  London,  and  yet  he  was  not 
surprised  to  see  her.  She  was  a  figure  of  consola- 
tion, embodying  the  hours  of  peace  at  Holmhurst 
that  he  had  been  hoping  to  enjoy.  When  he  shook 
hands  with  her  she  said  quietly :  "  Eleanor  told  me 
that  you  were  going  down  by  this  train."  At  the 
time  it  seemed  a  perfectly  natural  explanation  of 
her  presence;  it  was  only  afterward  that  he  re- 
flected that  she  must  have  chosen  to  be  there. 

When  they  had  seated  themselves  in  the  train, 
on  opposite  seats,  he  became  aware  of  a  change  in 
her  manner  to  him,  or  rather  in  the  relations  be- 
tween them.  She  was  curiously  humble,  as  if  it 
were  now  she  and  not  he  who  was  to  be  taken  for 
granted.  The  current  of  curiosity  which,  in  spite 
of  her  lurking  passiveness  of  attitude,  he  had  always 
felt  proceeding  from  her,  had  ceased.  He  no  longer 
felt  the  need  to  bluff,  but  the  effect,  instead  of  being 
a  relief,  was  disturbing.  Resistance  removed,  he 
did  not  know  what  to  put  in  its  place,  and  it  was 
as  if  she  were  waiting. 

At  first  he  tried  to  explain  her  manner  by  her 
sense  of  his  double  loss  since  he  had  last  seen  her. 
She  did  not  wish  to  spy  upon  his  grief.  Since  she 
did  not  ask  him  any  questions  and  silence  was  awk- 
ward, he  was  driven  to  ask  her  questions  about 


THE  CATFISH  291 

Darragh  and  her  work.  She  answered  rather 
coldly,  so  that  he  wondered  if  she  and  Darragh  had 
quarreled.  There  was  nothing  in  her  actual  re- 
marks to  indicate  that  they  had,  and  she  had  seen 
Darragh  —  who  was  now  living  in  Chelsea  —  only 
that  morning.  But  she  spoke  as  if  neither  Darragh 
nor  her  work  was  the  immediate  purpose. 

George  was  perplexed.  It  was  as  if  he  had  left 
something  undone.  About  his  own  feelings  he  had 
no  perplexity.  Quietly,  despairingly,  he  knew  that 
he  loved  her,  that  he  had  always  loved  her.  Having 
known  woman,  although  basely,  he  could  no  longer 
mistake  the  nature  of  his  feelings  with  regard  to 
her.  The  poor  creature  with  whom  he  had  abused 
the  name  of  love  had  at  least  done  that  for  him. 
He  knew  now  that  his  white  thoughts  of  Mary 
and  the  stirring  of  his  blood  in  her  presence  were 
parts  of  the  same  mystery.  He  understood  that 
what  had  made  him  bluff  with  her  had  been  the 
uncertainty  whether  she  was  ready  to  accept  all 
that  was  implied  in  his  love,  in  any  man's  love. 
How  much  of  his  belief  that  she  was  not  ready  was 
due  to  his  conversation  with  Doctor  Raymond  on  the 
evening  when  they  crossed  the  Gardens  together, 
he  could  not  have  said;  but  he  knew  that,  in  spite 
of  it,  if  he  could  have  come  clean  to  her  he  would 


292  THE  CATFISH 

have  knelt  and  offered  her  the  devotion  of  his  heart. 
But  that  was  now  impossible. 

Unable  to  say  what  was  in  his  heart,  he  talked 
to  her  freely  about  what  was  in  his  head :  his  future 
plans  or  no  plans,  the  news  of  Bourneside,  the  mild 
humors  of  Walter's  and  Amelia's  courtships.  He 
half  hoped  that  something  of  what  he  could  not 
say  would  come  out  in  his  comments.  Mary  in 
her  corner,  leaning  her  dark  head  on  her  hand,  lis- 
tened with  apparent  interest,  but  her  glance  at  him 
was  not  critical  as  formerly,  and  when  she  met 
his  eyes  her  own  looked  defensive.  It  was  almost 
as  if  she  and  not  he  had  something  to  conceal. 

Whether  for  this  reason,  or  because  she  had 
some  difficulty  in  hearing  him,  at  one  point  in  the 
journey  she  got  up  suddenly  and  came  and  sat 
beside  him.  The  movement,  so  swift  and  decided, 
in  the  quivering  train  recalled  the  sudden  movement 
of  that  other  woman  in  the  quaking  room,  with 
all  the  width  of  innocence  between  the  two,  and 
he  could  have  cried  out  irritably :  "  You  shouldn't 
have  done  that !  "  He  found  himself  stammering, 
and  the  next  moment  the  train  shot  out  from  a  dark 
cutting  into  a  miracle  of  light  and  color.  On  either 
side  the  embankment  was  alive  with  Campanulas, 
white,  rose  and  blue,  wind-shaken  and  sun-suffused. 


THE  CATFISH  293 

At  the  lovely  unexpected  sight  they  both  ex- 
claimed: "Look!"  It  was  only  with  an  effort 
that  he  had  not  seized  her  hand.  If  he  had,  he 
knew  that  the  touch  of  her  in  that  moment  of  emo- 
tion shared  would  have  abolished  the  sense  of  his 
unfitness  and  of  her  austerity.  He  would  have 
turned  and  taken  her  in  his  arms  and  said :  "  Mary, 
I  love  you.  I  have  always  loved  you." 

The  moment  of  danger  past,  he  steeled  himself 
against  it  by  talking  in  a  way  that  he  knew  to  be 
trite  and  informing  about  the  probable  reason  for 
the  flowers.  There  were  nurseries  in  the  neighbor- 
hood; somebody  must  have  flung  a  handful  of  seed 
upon  the  embankment,  and  in  succeeding  years  the 
flowers  had  spread ;  and  so  on,  and  so  on.  Whether 
or  not  his  nervousness  reacted  upon  Mary,  she  was 
ill  at  ease,  though  strangely  quiet,  and  he  was  glad 
when  they  changed  at  Sutton.  For  the  remaining 
short  stage  of  the  journey  Mary  seemed  to  make 
a  point  of  looking  for  a  compartment  in  which 
there  were  other  people. 

That  week-end  at  Holmhurst  was  destined  for 
George  to  be  full  of  half-meanings  and  little  per- 
plexities. In  a  minority  of  one — for  Mr.  Mark- 
ham  was  now  but  a  scholarly  child  with  a  thin 
humor  that  was  frankly  indulged  —  he  felt  male 


294  THE  CATFISH 

and  clumsy,  and  both  women  were  quietly  gay, 
though  their  embrace  at  meeting  made  him  think 
of  Ruth  and  Naomi.  Eleanor  had  come  to  the 
stage,  not  uncommon  in  the  religious,  in  which  the 
business  of  the  world  is  a  series  of  amusing  phe- 
nomena; and  once  in  her  company  Mary  seemed  to 
recover  her  spirits,  with  perhaps  a  new  note  of 
irony.  The  place  itself  was  right  for  their  mood; 
a  deep-roofed  Surrey  farmhouse,  converted  to  a 
vicarage,  standing  in  an  irregular  garden  with 
grassed  alleys  and  shady  bowers.  The  cedared 
lawn  was  bounded  by  a  sunk  fence  giving  an  un- 
interrupted view  over  suave,  park-like  country  to 
blue  distant  hills.  Always  to  George  the  landscape 
suggested  the  word  "  Beulah,"  though  in  his  present 
company  he  felt  that  the  immediate  surroundings 
might  have  been  the  scene  of  a  court  of  love.  Mr. 
Markham,  with  his  frail  ascetic  face,  and  rather 
tiresome  disquisitions,  might  have  been  the  presiding 
cardinal.  He  ought  to  have  snuffed. 

They  lay  about  in  deck  chairs  among  roses  in 
the  long  June  evening  and  talked  lazily.  They  did 
not  talk  about  love,  but  George  could  feel  a  fem- 
inine flicker,  like  summer  lightning,  of  amusement 
about  the  humors  of  man.  With  the  consciousness 
of  sleeping  thunder  in  his  blood,  he  thought  that 


THE  CATFISH  295 

they  didn't  play  fairly;  they  trifled  with  problems 
they  didn't  understand.  It  was  all  very  well  for 
them  —  a  nun  by  choice  and  a  nun  by  temperament. 
Though,  sometimes,  he  had  the  odd  idea  that  if 
the  grossness  which  poisoned  his  memory  had  been 
revealed,  it  would  have  been  laughed  out  of  court 
rather  than  condemned  with  horror. 

Mary  now  talked  a  great  deal  about  Darragh, 
with  respect  of  his  work  and  amusement  of  his 
"  ways."  It  was  evident  that  she  played  a  sisterly 
part  in  his  life.  She  herself  had  long  outgrown 
the  callow  taste  for  picturesque  starvation,  and  Dar- 
ragh, apparently,  had  never  had  it,  but  he  was  in- 
credibly careless.  He  had  to  be  dug  out  to  meals, 
bullied  into  clothes,  and  dry-nursed  in  bargains.  In 
the  autumn  Mary,  Darragh  and  his  mother  were 
going  to  Italy. 

That  took  them  back  to  the  holidays  in  Cornwall. 
Mrs.  Darragh  still  had  the  cottage,  though  she  now 
spent  a  great  deal  of  her  time  in  London.  She 
often  spoke  of  George.  With  her  as  a  text,  and 
so  leaving  him  uncertain  whether  the  interest  was 
personal  or  vicarious,  Mary  asked  him  did  he  still 
make  maps,  and  was  Lancelot  still  his  hero? 

Then  Eleanor  had  to  hear  the  tale,  and  so  became 
reminiscent  of  his  childhood.  "  You  were  a  funny 


296  THE  CATFISH 

boy,"  she  said.  Mary  had  to  be  given  instances, 
and,  in  the  dark,  George  was  able  to  explain  and 
justify  the  motives  which  had  made  him  act  so 
queerly.  The  soft  laughter,  so  understanding  and 
maternal  in  its  cadences,  made  him  feel  vaguely 
that  he  had  lost  something  in  growing  up.  In  this 
atmosphere,  and  with  the  abiding  sense  of  all  mys- 
teries explained,  though  by  the  wrong  sibyl,  he 
would  not  have  minded  if  Mary  had  referred  to 
the  scene  in  the  nursery.  Somehow  it  did  not  seem 
to  matter  now.  But  she  did  not.  Perhaps  she 
had  forgotten,  or  perhaps  she  thought  that  it  would 
recall  too  vividly  his  mother. 

In  the  carrying  in  of  chairs,  putting  out  of  lights 
and  locking  up,  Mary  slipped  away  to  bed  without 
saying  good  night  to  him.  The  sense  of  her  under 
the  same  roof  was  a  mingled  emotion.  In  the 
night  he  dreamed  that  Mrs.  Lorimer  was  dead, 
and  that  Mary  covered  her  with  pitiful  white  roses. 
He  was  awakened  by  thunder  and  pouring  rain,  and 
rising  to  close  the  casement,  recognized  that  what 
had  inspired  his  dream  was  a  great  bush  of  white 
roses  in  the  center  of  the  curving  drive. 

In  the  morning  he  thought  that  Mary  looked  hol- 
low-cheeked and  heavy-eyed,  though  she  was  ex- 
travagently  brisk  and  businesslike  in  her  manner. 


THE  CATFISH  297 

The  thunder,  she  said,  had  cleared  the  air; 
"  though,"  she  added,  "  it  seems  to  have  ruined  the 
roses."  That  was  when  they  were  leaving  the 
front  door  on  their  way  to  early  celebration  in  the 
queer  little  church  with  a  shingled  spire.  George 
knew  that  Mary's  attendance  was  only  to  please 
Eleanor,  and  that  Eleanor  knew  it ;  and  yet,  kneeling 
at  her  side,  he  felt  that  there  was  a  conception  of 
the  rite  in  which  Mary's  polite  acquiescence  was 
enough,  and  that  Eleanor  had  it.  But  then  the 
spiritual  reach  of  Eleanor  seemed  to  include  every- 
thing, and  he  thought  of  the  sheet  let  down  from 
Heaven. 

After  breakfast  Mary  asked  him  to  come  out  for 
a  walk.  Whatever  had  been  the  cause  of  her  curi- 
ous abstraction  in  the  train  she  was  now  completely 
mistress  of  herself.  He  concluded  that,  meeting 
him  after  an  interval  in  which  he  had  lost  both 
his  mother  and  father,  she  had  expected  to  find 
him  sentimental,  and  was  prepared  to  be  sympa- 
thetic. Perhaps  she  had  even  been  a  little  hurt 
that  her  sympathy  wasn't  needed.  Now  she  was 
evidently  relieved  that  it  wasn't.  She  was  no  senti- 
mentalist and,  as  she  said,  the  thunder  had  cleared 
the  air.  There  was  no  trace  of  irony  in  her  man- 
ner now.  She  was  the  best  of  companions  out-of- 


298  THE  CATFISH 

doors;  loping  along  with  a  smooth  stride,  quick 
to  notice,  but  with  a  light  hand  upon  scenery,  keen 
to  catch  a  meaning,  but  not  over-anxious  to  thrash 
it  out,  and,  best  of  all,  easy  to  be  silent  with. 

As  they  walked  in  the  washed  air  over  swelling 
country  that,  to  George's  western  eyes,  had  a  curi- 
ous urbanity  from  the  absence  of  rocks  and  under- 
growth, along  unfenced  roads,  and  by  bridle-paths 
through  orderly,  hyacinth-paved  woods,  she  showed 
an  active  interest  in  his  affairs.  Did  he  mean  to  stop 
in  Barstow,  and  would  his  more  responsible  position 
give  him  opportunities  for  working  out  any  of  the 
ideas  he  had  hinted  at  in  his  letters  to  Darragh? 
Conscious  that  the  ideas  hinted  at  were  very  vague, 
he  felt  rather  ashamed  at  her  remembering  them, 
but  her  interest  was  bracing.  He  felt  as  if  he  had 
made  a  new  pact  with  her  upon  a  sounder  though 
less  personal  basis  than  before.  Somehow  they 
had  reached  an  understanding  without  his  "  having 
it  out "  with  her,  and  if  there  was  something  unex- 
plained, there  was  enough  in  common  between  them 
for  comfortable  terms.  When  they  parted  that 
night  she  gave  him  friendly  eyes  with  her  hand, 
and  he  felt  that  she,  too,  had  found  an  adjustment 
that  satisfied  her.  He  was  glad  that  she  found 
or  made  it  inconvenient  to  travel  by  the  same  train 


THE  CATFISH  299 

with  him  back  to  London  in  the  morning.  Disturb- 
ing and  perplexing  though  it  had  been,  there  was 
an  experience  that  he  did- not  wish  diluted.  To 
the  end  of  his  life  he  would  cherish  the  memory  of 
her  swift  movement  in  the  train. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

FOR  some  time  the  affairs  of  the  bank  had 
been  in  a  state  of  uncertainty.  They  were 
not  unprosperous,  but  they  had  reached  a  point  at 
which  a  definite  choice  of  future  policy  had  to 
be  taken.  It  was  a  question  of  admitting  new 
shareholders  or  amalgamating  with  a  larger  con- 
cern. There  were  meetings  of  directors,  in  which 
George  took  only  a  languid  interest.  He  felt  that 
neither  alternative  pleased  him,  but  when  he  came 
to  ask  himself  why,  he  found  that  the  reason  was 
nothing  more  than  an  instinctive  dislike  to  corpora- 
tions. Personal  enterprise  was  one  thing,  and  pub- 
lic organization  another,  but  he  distrusted  any 
separation  of  investing  from  executive  interests  for 
the  purpose  of  private  gain. 

When  Walter  finally  told  him  that  the  balance 
of  opinion  was  in  favor  of  absorption  into  the 
Western  Counties  Bank,  George  knew  that  he  had 
come  to  a  crisis  in  his  life. 

"Supposing  I  stand  out?"  he  said. 

"  Of  course  you  can  if  you  like,"  said  Walter 
300 


THE  CATFISH  301 

rather  sorely,  "  but  unless  you  have  some  very  strong 
reason  I  don't  think  you  ought  to  raise  objections 
at  this  stage.  It  is  a  natural  development  of  busi- 
ness, and  from  what  we  can  make  out  it  is  bound 
to  be  to  our  advantage.  Why  do  you  wish  to 
complicate  matters  ? " 

"  My  notion  was  to  simplify  them  by  standing 
out  altogether,"  said  George. 

"  Why,  have  you  heard  of  anything?  "  said  Wal- 
ter quickly. 

George  laughed  at  his  eagerness  and  said : 

"  No,  but  I  should  like  to  look  round  me  for  a 
bit." 

Walter  shook  his  head.  "  You  won't  find  a  bet- 
ter opportunity  than  this,"  he  said. 

"  No,  but  I  might  make  one,"  said  George,  who 
was  beginning  to  enjoy  Walter's  mystification, 
though  his  own  purpose  was  by  no  means  clear, 
and  certainly  not  with  the  idea  of  immediate  profit. 
He  had  become  possessed  of  an  overwhelming  de- 
sire for  a  free  hand.  Walter  evidently  thought 
him  unwise,  but  agreed  to  find  out  what  his  interest 
in  the  bank  was  worth  in  the  terms  of  the  proposed 
amalgamation. 

The  offer  was  not  large,  but  George  decided  to 
take  it.  His  first  idea  was  to  realize  all  his  re- 


302  THE  CATFISH 

sources.  That  raised  another  question.  Walter, 
who  was  to  be  married  at  Christmas,  had  been  talk- 
ing vaguely  about  trying  to  let  Bourneside.  He 
wanted  to  live  in  Cleeve.  There  was  nothing  in 
the  terms  of  Mr.  Tracy's  will  to  forbid  this,  so 
long  as  the  property  was  not  neglected,  but  George 
could  not  bear  to  think  of  Bourneside  in  the  hands 
of  strangers.  He  asked  Walter  if  he  would  make 
Bourneside  a  part  of  the  readjustment  of  interests, 
and  Walter  jumped  at  the  opportunity.  His  only 
concern  was  for  George. 

"Of  course,  if  you  are  thinking  of  turning  gen- 
tleman-farmer, I  dare  say  you  could  grub  along,"  he 
said.  "  It  seems  rather  a  feeble  thing  to  do  at 
your  age,  but  you've  enough  capital  to  stand  your 
losses  until  you  can  catch  on  to  a  good  thing." 

George  let  the  idea  of  a  gentleman- farmer  remain 
as  the  ostensible  reason  for  his  apparent  foolishness. 
Since  his  father's  death  he  had  managed  Bourne- 
side,  and  had  begun  to  see  possibilities  that  were 
worth  developing.  He  did  not  mean  to  rely  on 
them  for  his  entire  income,  but  they  would  serve 
as  a  pretext,  and  he  did  not  wish  to  scandalize  Wal- 
ter by  telling  him  that  the  "  good  thing  "  was  pre- 
senting itself  to  his  imagination  more  and  more 
clearly  in  the  form  of  a  shop. 


THE  CATFISH  303 

All  his  observations,  conscious  or  unconscious,  in 
London  and  Barstow,  seemed  to  bring  out  the  fact 
that  the  shop  —  in  a  wide  sense  of  the  word  — 
was  the  weakest  point  in  the  commercial  organiza- 
tion.    It  was  the  purveyor  —  from  the  grocer  to 
the  theatrical  manager  —  who  was  the  duffer.     The 
public  was  all  right,  and  if  the  manufacturer  was 
not,  his  subordinates  were.     ;<  The  men  are  splen- 
did," might  be  said  with  truth  of  almost  any  de- 
partment  of   industry.     More   and   more   he   was 
learning  to  admire  the  men  who  did  the  work. 
But  between  them  and  the  public  was  the  middle- 
man.    So  far  from  being  unnecessary,  the  middle- 
man was  getting  more  and  more  important  as  the 
social  organization  grew  more  complicated.     People 
hadn't  time  or  wouldn't  take  the  trouble  to  look 
for  what  they  wanted;  they  took  what  they  could 
get.     Everything  depended   upon  the  middleman, 
and  at  present  he  represented  the  lowest  level  of  in- 
telligence in  the  community.     He  was  a  barrier  be- 
tween healthy  supply  and  demand;  because  of  him 
the  best  work  could  not  find  a  market.     There  were 
the  big  stores,  of  course,  but  they  were  out  for 
dividends,  not  shopkeeping,  and  they  flourished  on 
people's  laziness  rather  than  their  judgment ;  and  all 
the  experiments  in  what  might  be  called  the  higher 


304  THE  CATFISH 

shopkeeping  seemed  to  be  made  by  sentimental  ama- 
teurs. They  relied,  so  to  speak,  on  their  beautiful 
eyes. 

The  more  George  thought  about  it,  the  more  con- 
vinced he  was  that  his  game  was  to  be  some  sort 
of  purveyor  —  an  interpreter  between  the  producer 
and  the  consumer.  But  the  matter  needed  a  great 
deal  of  consideration;  it  was  important  to  begin 
by  purveying  the  right  thing.  On  the  whole  he  was 
inclined  to  believe  that  he  ought  to  begin  with 
something  ornamental,  or,  at  any  rate,  more  or  less 
in 'the  nature  of  a  luxury.  For  some  reason  or 
other  —  and  it  was  connected  in  his  mind  with  the 
practical  value  of  the  esthetic  instinct  —  people 
were  far  more  discriminating  about  their  lux- 
uries than  they  were  about  their  necessities.  He 
must  begin  at  the  top.  At  the  same  time  he 
must  begin  with  something  in  general  demand  and 
something,  moreover,  that  did  not  need  special 
training  in  the  purveyor.  A  newspaper  or  a  the- 
ater —  the  commonest  attractions  to  the  amateur  — 
was  ruled  out  from  the  beginning. 

During  the  autumn  George  devoted  all  his  en- 
ergies to  the  improvement  of  Bourneside.  The 
public  was  not  to  be  caught,  any  more  than  England 
was  to  be  saved,  with  cabbages,  but  he  knew  that, 


THE  CATFISH  305 

whatever  he  did,  Bourneside  would  come  into  it 
by  and  by.  Since  he  had  given  his  personal  at- 
tention to  the  estate  he  had  been  more  than  ever 
impressed  by  the  knowledge  and  skill  with  which 
his  father  had  managed  it.  His  main  idea  had 
been  the  preciousness  of  the  soil,  so  that  his  culti- 
vation, though  not  technically  so,  had  been  intensive. 
Toward  the  end  of  his  life  he  had  specialized  in 
market  gardening.  The  two  nearer  fields  had  been 
kept  for  the  purposes  of  a  small  dairy  farm,  but 
Gardiner's  field  had  been  plowed  and  enriched  and 
turned  over  to  small  fruit  and  vegetables. 

The  place  was  now  in  the  best  condition  for 
scientific  experiments.  Intensive  culture  was  very 
much  in  the  air,  and  George  was  considering  the 
advisability  of  getting  over  a  man  from  France 
when  there  fell  into  his  hands  Abercrombie's  Ev- 
eryman His  Own  Gardener,  which  Oliver  Gold- 
smith declined  to  revise  on  the  grounds  that  "  the 
style  was  best  suited  to  the  subject  of  which  it 
treated "  and  that  it  required  "  nothing  at  his 
hands."  Abercrombie  sent  him  to  McPhail,  Nicol 
and  Knight,  and  to  the  still  earlier  work  of  London 
and  Wise,  The  Retired  Gardn'r,  published  in  1706. 

In  these  books  George  found  the  methods  of  the 
"  new  gardening  "  described  in  detail,  and  it  seemed 


306  THE  CATFISH 

reasonable  to  suppose  that  a  system  pursued  nearly 
two  hundred  years  ago  with  regard  to  the  peculiari- 
ties of  English  climate  and  soil  would  be  the  best 
for  his  purpose.  He  decided  to  do  without  the 
Frenchman. 

He  found  an  enthusiastic  supporter  in  Andrews, 
the  young  man  who  had  succeeded  Dicky  Dando. 
As  they  worked  among  their  frames  and  cloches  — 
red  and  blue  bell  glasses  being  the  last  proof  of 
George's  insanity  to  Walter  and  Amelia  —  Andrews 
was  never  tired  of  talking  about  Mr.  Tracy  and  re- 
gretting that  he  had  not  lived  to  share  the  dis- 
covery of  "  them  old  books  ".  From  what  George 
could  make  out,  it  was  only  a  sturdy  British  preju- 
dice that  had  kept  his  father  from  adopting  the 
French  methods.  He  had  talked  to  Andrews  about 
them.  George  liked  to  think  that  he  was  taking 
up  the  work  where  his  father  left  it  off,  and  to 
remember  that,  at  the  end,  they  had  been  associated 
in  The  Yeoman's  Year  Book.  Paying  for  its 
publication  had  been  his  first  pious  duty,  and  it 
presently  brought  him  interesting  correspondence. 
Apart  from  the  filial  duty,  George  soon  found 
that  he  was  taking  a  keen  pleasure  in  the  work  for 
its  own  sake. 

He  had  a  good  deal  of  his  father's  passion  for 


THE  CATFISH  307 

the  soil,  and  once  awakened  by  practise  it  seemed 
to  coordinate  his  more  occult  feelings  about  na- 
ture. As  he  sauntered  home  earthy  from  Gar- 
diner's field  in  the  evening,  it  amused  him  to 
think  that  the  Waterfall  nodded  approvingly.  Un- 
doubtedly he  belonged  to  the  Bourne.  Meanwhile 
he  kept  his  eyes  open  for  an  opportunity  to  find 
expression  for  his  more  public  interests.  He  had 
decided  that  he  must  find  it  in  Barstow.  London 
was  too  solid  —  at  any  rate,  for  a  beginning. 
Somehow  his  father's  ideas  about  him  were  coming 
true,  after  all.  He  had  found  a  base;  now  he  must 
get  into  the  skirmishing  line. 

The  opportunity  presented  itself  quite  suddenly 
in  the  shape  of  a  corner  shop  for  sale  at  the  top 
of  the  hill  by  which  one  climbed  out  of  Barstow 
into  Cleeve.  The  position  could  hardly  be  bet- 
tered; it  was  both  central  and  commanding.  The 
shop  belonged  to  a  draper  named  Foy  whose  de- 
clining affairs,  as  they  filtered  through  the  bank, 
had  for  a  long  time  excited  George's  mingled 
sympathy  and  impatience. 

Unwilling  to  disturb  Walter  before  he  was  ready 
to  begin,  George  arranged  with  Foy  to  take  over 
the  premises  from  the  end  of  the  year.  The  trans- 
action would  make  a  big  hole  in  his  capital,  but 


3o8  THE  CATFISH 

the  risk  had  to  be  taken,  and  if  tHe  experiment 
failed,  he  would  have  little  difficulty  in  finding  a 
tenant  for  the  shop.  There  was  a  sporting  attrac- 
tion in  starting  where  another  man  had  come  to 
grief. 

The  obvious  thing  was  to  begin  by  selling  the 
produce  of  Bourneside.  There  would  be  no  lack  of 
supplies,  for  George's  short  experience  as  a  market 
gardener  told  him  that  no  kind  of  producer  suffered 
more  from  the  greed  and  stupidity  of  the  middle- 
man. George  knew  a  dozen  farmers  who  would 
welcome  a  wholesale  buyer  content  with  reasonable 
profits.  But  for  various  reasons  he  decided  that  it 
would  be  inadvisable  to  start  as  a  greengrocer.  It 
was  necessary  to  make  a  little  splash. 

Directly  after  Walter's  wedding  George  went  up 
to  London  and  called  on  Mrs.  Glanville.  When  she 
had  done  crying  out  at  the  improvement  in  his  ap- 
pearance, the  tan  of  him,  the  breadth  of  his  shoul- 
ders, and  his  knowing  look  of  being  up  to  some- 
thing, he  said : 

"  What's  the  mpst  important  thing  in  the  world  ?  " 

"  Frocks,"  she  said  emphatically,  "  and  thereby 
hangs  a  tale.  Kate  Flanders  is  on  her  beam  ends." 

"  Then  we'll  right  her,"  he  said,  and  proceeded 
to  tell  Mrs.  Glanville  what  he  was  up  to.  She  was 


,THE  CATFISH  309 

attracted  by  the  general  idea,  but  was  doubtful 
about  Kate  Flanders. 

"  You'll  never  get  her  away  from  London,"  she 
said,  "  but  I'll  speak  to  her  if  you  like." 

"  No,  you  don't,"  he  said.  "  But  if  I  may  tell 
Miss  Flanders  that  you'll  come  to  Barstow  for  your 
frocks  —  ?" 

"  Ah,  you'll  succeed  as  a  shopkeeper,"  said  Mrs. 
Glanville  quietly. 

When  he  went  to  Hanover  Square  he  observed 
that  Kate  Flanders  made  hats  as  well  as  frocks. 
There  was  a  single  hat  on  a  tall  stem  in  the  win- 
dow ;  black  with  an  eye  of  green.  "  It's  like  a 
sin,"  he  said  to  himself  with  a  chuckle,  as  he  opened 
the  door. 

Kate  received  him  gloomily,  surrounded  by  ac- 
counts, in  an  upper  room.  Evidently  his  name  had 
conveyed  nothing  to  her,  though  she  remembered 
his  face  directly  she  saw  him  and  gave  him  a  cold 
bow.  She  made  no  sign  of  wondering  why  he  had 
come,  but  eyed  him  with  the  same  hostile  expres- 
sion she  might  have  worn  to  the  dunning  creditor 
he  surmised  to  have  been  in  her  mind  when  his 
name  was  announced.  Meeting  her  again,  he  felt 
that  he  liked  Kate  extraordinarily;  her  back-to-the- 
wall  attitude  gave  him  confidence  and  geniality  — 


3io  THE  CATFISH 

as  if  he  were  dealing  with  a  badly-used  creature, 
and  had  to  prove  from  the  beginning  that  all  men 
were  not  liars.  It  would  be  amusing  to  humanize 
her.  When  he  spoke  of  Mrs.  Glanville,  she  said  at 
once: 

"  Why  don't  you  tell  her  she  wears  her  stays  too 
short?  I've  done  my  best." 

He  cheerfully  said  that  he  would,  and  then  came 
straight  to  his  business  with: 

"  I'm  opening  a  shop  in  Barstow,  and  I  want  a 
dressmaker.  I  stand  the  racket ;  you  run  the  show." 

For  a  long  time  she  would  not  listen  to  him. 
The  salary  he  offered  was  all  right,  but  what  scope 
would  she  have  in  Barstow? 

"  You'll  have  less  to  uneducate,"  he  said. 

"  That's  true,"  she  admitted,  with  a  gleam  of 
appreciation  in  her  eyes  that  reminded  him  of  a 
vicious  mare's.  "  Still,"  she  went  on,  "  Barstow 
is  a  small  place." 

"  There's  the  whole  West  of  England,"  he  said. 

"They  come  to  London,"  said  Kate. 

"  Not  when  we've  started,"  he  assured  her. 

She  eyed  him  suspiciously,  and  said: 

"  May  I  ask  what  you  are  doing  it  for,  Mr. 
Tracy?" 

"  For  fun,"  he  said  frankly. 


THE  CATFISH  311 

That  impressed  her,  and  he  followed  up  his  ad- 
vantage. 

"  Look  here,  Miss  Flanders,"  he  said,  jumping 
up  from  his  chair,  "  I  want  you  to  help  me.  I 
believe  there's  a  very  big  opportunity  for  anybody 
who  is  prepared  to  treat  business  as  a  game  and 
take  the  profits  for  granted.  My  notion  is  a  team 
of  specialists,  like  yourself,  each  with  an  abso- 
lutely free  hand  as  long  as  they  are  loyal  to  the 
concern.  I  provide  the  premises,  pay  the  salaries, 
take  all  the  risks  and  find  all  the  materials.  If 
the  thing  succeeds  we  can  arrange  a  system  of 
profit-sharing;  if  it  fails  —  I  have  had  my  fun. 
As  you  see,  I'm  not  doing  anything  startlingly  new; 
it  simply  means  that  I  am  beginning  shopkeeping 
at  the  other  end." 

Like  Mrs.  Glanville,  she  was  attracted  by  the 
general  idea,  though  she  doubted  the  prospects  for 
her  own  department.  Finally  she  agreed  to  come 
to  him  for  a  year,  if  she  might  bring  her  own  as- 
sistants, for  whom  she  seemed  to  have  a  savage 
affection. 

When  George  left  Hanover  Square  he  was  as- 
tonished at  the  rapidity  with  .which  his  ideas  were 
taking  shape.  One  thing  suggested  another.  Olv 
viously  the  next  thing  to  frocks  was  a  place  to  wear 


3i2  THE  CATFISH 

them  in.  He  must  have  a  department  of  house 
furnishing  and  decoration.  That  suggested  and 
explained  the  connection  there  had  always  been  in 
his  mind  between  Kate  Flanders  and  Mr.  Lindrop. 
When  he  called  to  see  Lindrop  he  was  more  than 
ever  impressed  by  the  fact  that  the  artist  was  be- 
ing wasted.  His  genius  was  for  handling  and  ar- 
ranging beautiful  things;  not  for  painting  pictures 
of  them.  If  you  got  to  the  bottom  of  it,  the  real 
meaning  of  his  art  to  him  was  that  it  brought  him 
the  attention  of  pretty  women.  It  was  an  extended 
sexual  attraction.  Looking  at  his  Dantesque  head, 
with  its  liquid  apprehensive  eyes,  while  Lindrop 
talked  about  the  incomprehensible  success  of  mere 
craftmanship,  George  thought  with  grim  amuse- 
ment that  his  profile  alone  was  worth  the  salary. 
He  would  be  the  rage  of  feminine  Cleeve.  But 
Lindrop  needed  careful  management.  Being  an  un- 
conscious humbug  he  was  naturally  bothered  by 
delicate  scruples  about  the  dignity  of  his  art.  He 
was  full  of  ideas  about  house  decoration,  but  he 
could  not  get  over  the  difference  between  the  studio 
and  the  shop.  George  saw  that  he  had  better  leave 
him  to  Mrs.  Glanville.  She  asked  Lindrop  to  din- 
ner and  in  a  rose-tinted  twilight  talked  to  him  about 
William  Morris  and  woman's  craving  for  beauty 


THE  CATFISH  313 

in  the  home;  and  he  agreed  at  any  rate  to  advise 
upon  the  decoration  of  Tracy's. 

The  first  practical  step  taken,  George  found  that 
the  difficulty  was  to  know  where  to  stop.  Every- 
body he  spoke  to  had  some  new  suggestion  to  offer 
based  upon  the  shortcomings  of  the  average  shop- 
keeper. There  was  every  evidence  that  whether 
Tracy's  succeeded  or  failed  the  experiment  was 
worth  trying.  But  it  was  necessary  to  examine 
the  suggestions;  to  distinguish  between  the  genuine 
grievance  and  mere  grumbling  and  stupidity.  Al- 
though George's  aim  was  finally  the  department 
store,  he  saw  that  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  start 
with  too  many  departments  at  once.  Intensive 
rather  than  extensive  culture  was  the  safest  policy. 
Recognizing  that  women  were  the  best  guides,  men 
being  too  much  concerned  about  the  financial  ques- 
tion, which  he  was  deliberately  deferring,  he  held 
consultations  with  Mrs.  Glanville,  Mrs.  Raymond, 
Mrs.  Dove  and  Kate  Flanders.  Their  opinions 
gave  him  a  pretty  wide  field  to  go  upon,  and  as  a 
result,  he  decided  to  begin  with  dressmaking  and 
millinery,  house  decoration,  a  book-shop  and  cir- 
culating library,  and  a  tea-room.  There  was  not  a 
book-shop  worth  the  name  in  Barstow  or  Cleeve; 
hardly,  when  he  came  to  think  of  it,  in  London. 


314  THE  CATFISH 

There  were  institutions  for  the  automatic  sale  and 
circulation  of  classics  and  half  a  dozen  of  the  more 
popular  novelists,  but  there  was  no  attempt  to  deal 
intelligently  with  the  great  and  increasing  mass  of 
modern  literature.  On  the  one  hand  good  books 
were  being  written  and  printed  —  hardly  pub- 
lished—  and  on  the  other  people  were  crying  out 
for  good  books  to  read.  Grateful  memory  of  the 
only  bookseller's  assistant  in  London  who  seemed 
to  know  the  names  of  more  than  Shakespeare, 
Tennyson,  Longfellow  and  six  living  novelists,  en- 
abled George  to  find  the  man  he  wanted  without 
delay.  The  tea-room  was  an  obvious  attraction, 
and  a  good  manageress  could  easily  be  found  in 
Barstow. 

George  had  the  whole  scheme,  as  he  said,  cut 
and  dried  before  he  spoke  to  Darragh  about  it. 
He  hardly  knew  why  he  delayed  doing  so,  except 
that  Darragh  had  a  way  of  throwing  cold  water 
on  things  by  silence.  Darragh,  who  was  now  be- 
ginning to  make  a  reputation,  though  he  did  not 
sell  many  pictures,  was  sympathetic  with  a  reserva- 
tion. His  fear  was  not  that  George  would  fail, 
but  that  he  would  succeed. 

"  .You'll  get  swallowed  up  in  Tracy's,"  he  said. 


THE  CATFISH  315 

"  It's  my  game,"  said  George,  "  my  picture,  my 
poem." 

"  Yes,"  said  Darragh  quietly,  "  but  one  doesn't 
paint  a  picture  or  write  a  poem  for  the  sake  of  the 
signature." 

"  It  goes  a  long  way  in  the  market,"  said  George. 

"There's  price,"  said  Darragh,  as  he  squeezed 
a  worm  of  paint  on  his  palette,  "  and  there's 
value." 

George  felt  that  he  must  make  some  allowance 
for  a  man  who  suffered  from  the  difference  between 
the  two,  and  he  said : 

"  The  value  is  to  me ;  it  amuses  me  enormously. 
And  I  don't  think  the  thing  will  be  entirely  without 
value  from  a  general  point  of  view." 

"  I'm  sure  it  won't,"  said  Darragh,  "  something 
of  the  sort  is  badly  wanted.  It's  you  I'm  thinking 
about." 

George  could  not  quite  understand  Darragh's 
point  of  view.  Clearly  it  was  not  the  shop  idea 
that  repelled  him,  for  he  entirely  and  amusedly 
approved  of  the  enlistment  of  Lindrop.  He  pre- 
dicted that  Lindrop's  department  would  run  away 
from  all  the  others.  He  could  tell  George  of  any 
number  of  good  craftsmen  in  every  branch  of 


316  THE  CATFISH 

decorative  art,  from  furniture  to  jewelry,  who 
could  not  find  a  proper  market  for  their  work. 
There  never  was  a  time  when  so  much  good  stuff 
was  being  produced,  and  there  never  was  a  time 
when  the  general  standard  of  taste  was  so  high. 
But  it  could  only  be  indulged  by  happy  accident. 
The  producers  couldn't  afford  to  advertise,  and 
people  didn't  come  poking  round  the  studios  and 
workshops. 

"  So  that  the  real  arbiter  of  taste,"  said  Darragh, 
"  is  the  buyer  for  the  big  shops  which  can  and 
do  advertise." 

All  this  was  so  encouraging  to  George  that  he 
did  not  worry  about  Darragh's  vague  dissatisfac- 
tion at  the  idea  of  Tracy's.  After  all,  one  must 
allow  something  for  the  peculiarities  of  the  artistic 
mind.  George  would  have  liked  to  compare  notes 
with  Mary  Festing,  but  she  was  away  with  Mrs. 
Darragh  in  Cornwall. 

While  Tracy's  was  being  got  ready,  George 
had  Kate  Flanders  and  Lindrop  down  to  stop 
with  him  at  Bourneside.  It  was  very  important 
that  they  should  get  on  well  together.  Amelia 
accepted  the  situation  in  a  nil  admirari  spirit. 
She  had  always  known  that  George  was  mad,  and 
Mr.  Lindrop  was  a  duck.  She  hoped  that  George 


THE  CATFISH 

would  not  go  to  smash  before  she  was  married, 
because  she  wanted  Mr.  Lindrop  to  do  her  drawing- 
room.  It  was  a  good  thing  that  Harry  was  in 
India;  men  were  so  down  on  anybody  with  a 
spark  of  imagination.  The  attitude  of  Kate  Flan- 
ders, whom  Amelia  christened  "  Mrs.  Siddons,"  to 
Lindrop,  was  a  source  of  great  amusement  to 
George.  In  the  presence  of  a  good-looking  woman 
Lindrop  simply  could  not  help  languishing,  and 
Kate  had  too  keen  a  sense  of  his  professional  value 
to  resent  his  attentions.  "  He's  a  sickly  fool,  but 
he  knows,"  was  her  comment. 

By  the  time  Walter  returned  from  his  honey- 
moon in  Switzerland  the  name  Tracy  was  already 
up  over  the  shop  at  the  top  of  Barton  Hill.  As 
George  had  expected,  the  name  stuck  in  Walter's 
throat,  but  the  good-humored  chaff  to  which  he 
was  subjected  at  the  club  kept  him  from  taking 
the  matter  too  seriously.  The  businesslike  way 
in  which  George  had  set  to  work  had  impressed 
people;  and  the  division  of  opinion  as  to  his  chances 
of  success  helped  to  soften  the  blow  for  his  brother. 
It  enabled  him  to  express  concern  on  purely  prac- 
tical grounds. 

Tracy's  opened  quietly  irt  April  —  not  on  the 
first,  as  Amelia  professed  to  desire.  George  al- 


3i8  THE  CATFISH 

ready  saw  that  the  uncertain  quantity  in  his  "  team  " 
was  going  to  make  the  running  —  at  any  rate  for 
spectacular  purposes.  Before  the  fitting  up  of 
Tracy's  was  completed  Lindrop  had  received 
commissions  to  carry  out  "  interiors  "  in  country 
houses.  This  was  satisfactory,  for  several  reasons: 
it  kept  Lindrop  occupied,  the  transactions  were 
very  profitable  in  proportion  to  the  cost  of  labor 
and  materials,  and  they  did  not  arouse  the  jealousy 
of  local  tradesmen.  Such  commissions  had  for- 
merly been  executed  from  London,  and  the  capacity 
to  undertake  them  was  a  credit  to  the  town. 
George  did  not  mean  to  stop  there;  he  would  have 
to  come  into  competition  'all  down  the  scale;  but 
he  wished  to  hurt  the  susceptibilities  of  his  neigh- 
bors as  little  as  possible  at  the  beginning. 

The  merits  of  Kate  Flanders,  who,  with  her  two 
assistants,  lived  on  the  premises,  were  not  so  im- 
mediately recognized.  Her  models  in  the  window 
provoked  discussion,  which  automatically  benefited 
the  tea-room,  but  orders  were  slow  in  coming  in. 
George  observed  that  in  matters  of  dress  women 
are  absolutely  dependent  on  a  lead.  Presently  the 
duchess  came  to  Kate  for  an  evening  gown,  and 
after  that  Kate's  hands  were  full.  The  duchess, 
who  was  a  lively  young  woman  of  part  American 


THE  CATFISH  319 

birth,  expressed  a  friendly  interest  in  Tracy's. 
She  remembered  old  Mr.  Tracy  in  connection  with 
agricultural  shows,  and  talked  to  George  about  in- 
tensive culture.  Altogether  George  had  no  reason 
to  be  dissatisfied  with  his  beginning.  Something 
must  be  allowed  for  curiosity,  but  he  had  other 
cards  to  play  before  it  should  be  exhausted,  and 
the  book-shop,  at  any  rate,  sank  into  grateful  ac- 
ceptance with  the  quiet  security  of  a  long- felt 
want. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

IN  less  than  three  years  Tracy's  commanded 
the  West  of  England.  George  was  not  really 
astonished  at  his  own  success.  He  had  done 
nothing  remarkable.  As  he  told  Kate  Flanders,  he 
had  merely  begun  shopkeeping  at  the  other  end  — 
the  right  end.  In  the  transition  from  the  commer- 
cial to  the  financial  epoch  the  practise  of  shop- 
keeping  had  ceased  to  correspond  with  the  theory. 
He  had  retranslated  the  theory  into  the  terms  of 
practise  demanded  by  the  new  conditions.  He  had 
in  practise,  instead  of  only  in  theory,  given  the 
public  what  the  public  wanted. 

The  process  had  been  absorbingly  interesting. 
It  had  used  the  whole  of  him.  Instead  of  being 
a  mere  matter  of  intelligent  observation  it  had  in- 
volved the  deepest  researches  into  the  psychology 
of  his  period;  researches  in  which  intuition  was  a 
far  better  guide  than  reason.  There  was  not  a 
queer  fancy  of  his  childhood  that  he  could  afford 
to  ignore.  A  smile  or  a  stammer  had  often  told 
him  more  than  the  most  elaborate  explanations 

320 


THE  CATFISH  321 

on  the  part  of  a  customer.  The  irrational  fancy 
was  the  thing  that  really  mattered.  By  the  time 
the  need  was  reasoned  out  it  was  already  being 
clumsily  supplied  by  his  rivals.  Facts  were  always 
too  late.  They  were  the  tombstones  of  desire. 
In  anticipating  a  demand,  a  novel  or  a  play  or  a 
poem  was  more  to  his  purpose  than  a  Blue  Book 
report  or  an  article  in  a  financial  journal  —  though 
in  the  case  of  the  play  it  was  necessary  to  get  at 
it  before  it  had  been  sterilized  by  the  actor-manager. 
"Is  it  accepted  of  song?"  was  flat  commercial 
wisdom  from  books  to  bacon.  What  the  public 
thought  it  wanted  was  often  merely  the  leavings 
of  old  financial  tyranny.  His  profitable  aim  was 
what  the  public  wanted  in  its  bones  at  two  o'clock 

in  the  morning;  and  speaking  generally,  what  the 
public  wanted  in  its  bones  was  the  very  best  of 
its  kind  that  could  be  got  at  a  reasonable  price. 
One  of  the  first  axioms  he  printed  for  the  benefit 
of  his  staff  was :  "  Your  best  customer  is  the  sub- 
conscious mind." 

All  along  he  found  that  instead  of  straining  after 
new  business  he  had  to  put  the  brake  on.     Possi- 
bilities accumulated  against  him;  it  was  a  matter 
of  lifting  sluices  at  the  right  moment.     At  an  early 
date  sheer  pressure  compelled  him  to  open  a  green- 


322  THE  CATFISH 

grocery  department  or,  as  he  said,  "  let  in  the 
Bourne " ;  fruit,  flowers  and  vegetables  were  fol- 
lowed by  butter,  cheese  and  bacon,  and  now 
Tracy's  was  the  depot  for  a  district. 

As  at  the  beginning,  however,  the  house  furnish- 
ing and  decoration  department  kept  the  lead.  It 
was  here  that  the  choice  of  material  became  em- 
barrassing. On  the  one  side  were  eager  craftsmen, 
long  denied  recognition;  on  the  other  householders 
of  every  class,  whose  natural  tastes  had  been  bullied 
or  starved  into  acceptance  of  shoddy,  making  de- 
lighted discoveries  with :  "  That's  what  I  want !  " 
When  Lindrop  was  offered  a  subordinate  to  take 
what  George  called  the  "  crude  furnishing "  off 
his  hands,  he  said  humorously :  "  Oh,  but  I  say, 
you  know,  that's  the  crux  of  the  whole  thing. 
You  can  trust  a  bally  shop-girl  to  buy  casement 
cloth  or  wall-paper;  it  takes  me  to  choose  a  kitchen 
table."  Down  in  Somerset  George  discovered  a 
small  cabinet-maker  who  was  turning  out  beautiful 
furniture  on  Sheraton  lines  for  little  more  than 
the  cost  of  the  honest  wood;  George  doubled  his 
prices  and  gave  him  a  contract  for  all  he  could 
make,  and  a  workshop  into  the  bargain,  and  found 
the  transaction  profitable.  Then,  in  South  Wales, 
there  was  a  potter,  a  retired  soldier  who  was  re- 


THE  CATFISH  323 

producing  Chinese  glazes,  flambe,  sang-de-boeuf 
and  peachblow,  for  his  own  amusement.  He  in- 
troduced himself.  He'd  be  awful  glad,  you  know, 
if  Tracy's  would  give  the  stuff  a  chance.  The 
Bond  Street  people  didn't  seem  to  think  there  was 
anything  in  it,  and  they  rushed  you  so  if  they  sold 
it  on  commission. 

In  every  department  George  worked  from  the 
top  downward.  People  can't  afford  to  pay  that 
price  ?  Well,  then,  we  must  find  something  simpler 
—  not  a  cheap  imitation  of  the  same  thing.  He 
was  as  keen  to  get  at  the  true  inwardness  of  the 
factory  girl's  request  for  "  something  tasty  "  as  to 
satisfy  the  colonel's  demand  for  "  the  sort  of 
anchovy  paste  that  we  used  to  get  when  I  was  a 
boy,  sir !  "  It  was  Kate  Flanders  who  created  a 
mode  at  fifteen  shillings  that  became  historical  in 
servants'  "black." 

George  was  not  in  it  for  philanthropy;  what  he 
called  his  fun  absolutely  depended  on  making  the 
business  pay;  but  he  soon  saw  that  Tracy's 
was  going  to  be  beneficial  to  the  neighborhood. 
It  was  not  only  that  it  supported  the  better  sort 
of  producer,  agriculturalist,  manufacturer  and 
craftsman,  but  it  reacted  upon  the  other  shops  in 
the  town.  They  grumbled  at  the  competition,  but 


324  THE  CATFISH 

were  driven  to  consider  their  ways  in  the  effort 
to  meet  it.  And  since  in  several  directions  the 
competition  touched  London  rather  than  Barstow, 
there  were  two  sides  even  to  that.  It  encouraged 
the  local  habit  in  shopping,  and  Tracy's  was  not 
always  handy. 

From  the  first  George  recognized  that  everything 
depended  upon  the  staff.  He  was  the  impresario 
rather  than  the  master,  firm  but  sympathetic.  The 
tea-room  had  quickly  become  a  small  restaurant 
and  ascended  to  the  top  floor  with  a  mess-room 
for  the  staff,  and  George  generally  lunched  with 
the  members  at  liberty  at  his  hour.  In  contact 
iwith  simpler  clients  Kate  Flanders  had  become 
more  human,  and  softened  the  desperate  efficiency 
of  her  style  in  its  man-killing  aim  without  losing 
its  originality.  Lindrop  had  his  moods,  and  there 
was  always  the  fear  that  he  would  get  married  by 
a  wealthy  widow,  but  he  had  clearly  found  his 
game.  In  choosing  subordinates  George  went  for 
essentials.  "  Smartness  "  was  no  use  to  him ;  he 
wanted  imagination.  He  was  not  surprised  to  find 
that  previous  experience  was  no  proof  of  suitabil- 
ity. Had  he  not  read  in  the  speech  of  a  great 
captain  of  industry  to  commercial  travelers: 
"  Your  business  is  to  persuade  people  to  buy  some- 


THE  CATFISH  325 

thing  they  don't  want."  He  found  his  men  in  all 
sorts  of  unexpected  places.  Thus,  the  manager  of 
the  drug  department  was  a  young  Irish  dramatist 
he  had  met  in  Darragh's  studio.  When  somebody 
said  something  to  George  about  the  romance  of 
shopkeeping,  he  laughed  and  furtively  tied  a  knot 
in  his  handkerchief.  Afterward  he  went  into  his 
office  and  wrote  in  his  book  of  maxims :  "  The 
romance  of  shopkeeping  is  in  the  cold  facts." 

Unfortunately  Tracy's  was  his  game,  his  pic- 
ture, his  poem.  Between  it  and  Bourneside  he 
was  realizing  himself  in  every  fiber.  Or  almost. 
Sometimes  when  he  was  tired  he  was  dimly  con- 
scious of  a  part  of  himself  that  walked  lonely  in  a 
far  place  of  unanswered  questions.  In  his  dreams 
the  place  became  the  Grove.  It  was  full  of 
cherished  and  banished  memories  all  jumbled  up 
together;  the  shadow  of  his  mother's  face  on  the 
wall,  the  picture  of  the  Servian  woman,  the  broken 
iris,  Mary's  passion  of  tears  in  the  nursery  and  her 
swift  homing  to  him  in  the  train.  Sometimes  when 
Mary  moved  across  his  dream  the  fir-trees  lifted 
and  sighed  and  he  said  indignantly,  "  I  don't,  I 
don't,"  as  he  had  denied  the  accusation  of  writing 
"  po'try".  Oddly  enough,  Rahab's  window  had 
faded  from  his  dreams.  Once  he  found  himself 


326  THE  CATFISH 

looking  for  it  and  its  place  was  taken  by  the  window 
of  the  Resurrection. 

Waking,  he  tried  to  straighten  things  out.  It 
was  unreasonable  that  Mary  Festing  should  haunt 
him  in  this  way.  He  doubted,  now,  even  if  he 
loved  her.  She  was  too  cool  and  remote.  And 
anyhow,  she  had  said  that  love  in  its  completeness 
was  "  horrid".  If  it  had  been  Mrs.  Lorimer  who 
haunted  his  dreams  he  could  have  understood  it. 
In  his  waking  thoughts  he  admitted  that  she  was 
a  subject  for  remorse.  He  took  the  trouble  to 
find  out  what  had  become  of  her,  and  was  glad  to 
hear  that  she  seemed  to  have  reformed.  But,  what- 
ever the  moralists  might  say,  the  skeleton  at  his 
feast  of  life  was  never  Mrs.  Lorimer  but  always 
Mary  Festing.  He  still  owed  her  one  —  but  now 
in  another  meaning.  She  had  some  sort  of  claim 
upon  him.  What  it  was  he  did  not  know,  though 
sometimes  he  had  the  idea  that  Darragh  and  Mary 
were  talking  about  it  in  Chelsea. 

Amelia  was  now  married,  and  Andrews  and  his 
wife  lived  in  the  house  and  looked  after  George. 
He  had  turned  the  old  nursery  at  the  top  of  the 
house  into  a  sort  of  study.  It  was  there  that  he 
often  had  the  sense  of  a  part  of  himself  walking 
lonely  in  a  far  place.  He  put  it  down  to  physical 


THE  CATFISH  327 

reasons.  The  place  got  no  sun.  Indeed,  the  whole 
front  of  the  house  was  rather  gloomy.  All  the 
rooms  were  green  lit.  When  he  had  time  he 
would  carry  out  his  boyish  intention  of  turning 
the  back  of  the  house  into  the  front. 

At  any  rate  he  was  all  right  with  the  Bourne. 
Walking  beside  the  stream,  he  felt  it  flowing  to 
Tracy's.  He  wished  that  the  stream  were  big 
enough  to  bear  in  fact,  as  it  bore  in  imagination, 
the  produce  of  Bourneside  and  the  neighborhood 
into  Barstow.  It  amused  him  to  think  that  instead 
of  "Doom!"  the  Waterfall  now  said  "Boom!" 

It  was  upon  this  full  tide  of  activity  that  he  met 
Lesbia  Garnett.  He  met  her  at  Mrs.  Glanville's. 
But  before  he  met  her  he  had  heard  about  her  and 
was  attracted  by  what  he  heard ;  her  name  sug- 
gested fire  and  softness  combined,  and  there  were 
stories  about  her  courage  and  generosity  and  not 
so  much  unconventionally  as  apparent  ignorance  of 
any  guide  to  conduct  but  the  impulse  of  the  mo- 
ment. She  had  saved  a  child  from  drowning  in  the 
Regent's  Canal,  and  befriended  a  woman  of  the 
streets,  and  she  was  not  yet  twenty-six.  People 
spoke  her  name  like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet.  She 
was  the  mingled  pride  and  astonishment  of  her 
father,  a  widower,  who  wrote  books  about  common 


328  THE  CATFISH 

law.     He  couldn't  account  for  her,  anyhow,  was  the 
way  Mrs.  Glanville  described  his  attitude. 

The  meeting  was  arranged,  with  a  certain  amount 
of  joking  which  George  thought  rather  tiresome. 
He  was  prepared  to  be  disappointed.  But  the 
moment  he  saw  Lesbia  Garnett  he  knew  that  she 
was  the  woman  for  him.  She  was  an  amber-eyed, 
golden-skinned  blonde,  tall  and  deep-chested,  with 
the  voice  of  a  Creole.  The  softness  implied  in  her 
name  was  more  apparent  than  the  fire;  she  moved 
slowly  and  spoke  indolently,  though  with  singular 
directness.  When  she  laughed  it  was :  "  God's  in 
His  Heaven." 

George  never  knew  how  many  people  there  were 
in  the  room  that  June  evening.  In  his  memory 
of  it  there  was  an  applauding  crowd,  and  there 
must  have  been  a  band.  When  he  was  introduced 
to  Lesbia  he  held  her  hand  for  a  moment  in  perfect 
unconsciousness  and  then  led  her  to  a  seat.  Listen- 
ing to  her  first  remarks,  he  noted  with  approval 
that  she  was  a  person  of  no  great  intelligence  but 
strong  good  sense.  He  had  expected  to  find  her 
tiresomely  brilliant  or  wilfully  erratic.  As  he  bent 
to  her,  talking  with  a  curious  earnestness  about 
his  own  affairs,  as  if  they  had  to  be  made  clear, 
she  sat  up  looking  half  scared,  half  amused,  but 


THE  CATFISH  329 

evidently  not  displeased.  He  found  himself  ob- 
serving :  "  She's  as  golden-hearted  as  golden- 
headed." 

Afterward,  he  could  never  be  quite  sure  that 
he  did  not  call  her  "  Lesbia  "  from  the  beginning. 
Her  other  name  was  an  impertinence,  an  irrelevance 
—  except  as  it  suggested  her  eyes.  For  them  he 
found  extravagant  epithets  —  even  "  leonine." 
They  flared  when  she  spoke  of  Rome.  And  gar- 
nets should  certainly  go  on  her  golden  throat.  She 
answered  his  questions  about  her  tastes  and  doings 
with  agitated  obedience,  as  if  he  had  a  right  to 
know.  Yes,  she  had  been  to  Barstow  —  or  rather 
Cleeve.  It  made  her  sleepy.  No,  she  didn't  care 
much  about  walking,  though  she  loved  the  country, 
particularly  in  autumn, —  to  sit  about  in  an  orchard 
and  eat  grapes.  She  was  horribly  greedy. 

At  some  point  she  said :  "  You  are  taller  than 
I  expected,  and  I  thought  you  would  have  a  beard," 
but  whether  she  compared  him  with  a  previous 
description  or  the  destined  man  of  her  imagination 
was  not  clear,  nor  did  it  seem  to  matter.  Unless 
he  were  very  much  mistaken  she  was  ready  for 
him,  or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  for  any  likable 
man.  He  did  not  suppose  that  she  had,  nor  did 
he  wish  her  to  have,  any  great  quickness  or  subtlety 


330  THE  CATFISH 

of  emotion.  Almost  any  likable  man  might  rouse 
her  emotions,  and  once  roused,  they  would  "  set " 
like  blossom.  Loyalty  would  be  almost  a  defect 
in  her.  It  would  have  seemed  natural  to  buy  her. 
She  must  be  snapped  up.  While  they  were  talking 
in  their  corner  George  was  dimly  conscious  of  her 
small,  rather  prim- faced  father,  somewhere  in  the 
offing,  putting  up  his  glasses  with  an  expression 
of  "I  say!" 

Somebody  asked  Lesbia  to  sing,  and  she  laughed 
appealingly  and  said :  "  Oh,  I  can't  sing  to-night," 
and  George  scowled  at  the  disturber.  It  was  only 
when  he  understood  that  the  young  people  were 
preparing  for  an  impromptu  dance  —  Dolly  Glan- 
ville  almost  jerked  his  chair  away  from  under  him 
—  that  he  suddenly  recognized  that  he  must  have 
been  behaving  in  an  extraordinary  manner. 

He  did  not  care  in  the  least.  He  meant  to  have 
her,  and  the  apologies  could  be  made  afterward. 
When  they  rose,  Lesbia  came  to  his  arms  as  if  the 
dance  had  been  arranged  from  the  beginning  of 
all  time.  She  looked  a  little  dazed,  and  he  said: 
"Have  I  been  shouting  at  you?"  for  that  was 
what  he  felt.  She  shook  her  head,  with  half- 
closed  eyes,  and  her  hand  involuntarily  tightened 
on  his  shoulder.  Oh,  undoubtedly  she  was  ready. 


THE  CATFISH  331 

He  gave  himself  up  to  the  fun  of  the  evening, 
perfectly  aware  of  a  friendly  simmer  of  curiosity, 
but  waiting  his  chance.  Mr.  Garnett  made  nervous 
attempts  to  engage  him  in  conversation,  following 
him  about,  getting  spun  round  by  the  dancers, 
until  Mrs.  Glanville  had  almost  to  hold  him  down 
in  her  lap  —  as  she  said  afterward.  George  was 
not  ready  for  Mr.  Garnett.  This  chance  came 
with  the  sudden  recognition  of  curtains.  He 
danced  her  down  the  room  and  out,  half  wishing 
that  he  had  to  cut  his  way  with  her  through  the 
friendly  crowd,  and  discovered  the  little  alcove 
where  Dolly  kept  her  books. 

"  Will  you  marry  me  ?  "  he  said,  and  she,  still 
panting  from  the  dance,  said :  "  Oh,  yes !  "  but 
desperately  rather  than  eagerly.  He  laughed  ex- 
ultantly, with  her  hands  in  his.  "  But  you  must 
talk  to  my  father  about  it,"  she  said,  and  dodged 
him.  He  was  well  content;  if  roused  she  might 
cry  or  even  faint.  With  "  Come  along,  then,"  he 
took  her  back,  and  they  were  dancing  again  before 
anybody  but  the  more  observant  had  missed  them. 
"  Don't  say  a  word,"  he  said  when  he  released  her. 

When  at  last  he  was  alone  with  her  and  her 
father,  Mr.  Garnett  finished  the  sentence  that  he 
seemed  to  have  been  beginning  all  the  evening: 


332  THE  CATFISH 

"I  say!  You're  a  tremendous  fellow!"  George 
laughed  uproariously.  He  felt  a  tremendous  fel- 
low. "  I'll  explain  the  whole  thing,  sir,"  he  said, 
but  Lesbia  put  her  hands  over  her  ears  and  said: 
"  Oh,  not  to-night,"  and  then,  with  an  adorable 
duck  of  her  head  on  to  her  father's  arm,  "  Oh, 
I'm  ashamed." 

George  wanted  to  walk  with  them  to  Cornwall 
Terrace,  where  they  lived.  It  was  absurd,  he  said, 
that  anybody  should  want  to  drive  on  this  perfect 
night.  But  Mr.  Garnett  said,  "  No,  no,  Lesbia 
must  go  to  bed,"  and  kept  edging  between  her  and 
George  on  the  pavement,  while  the  servant  whistled 
for  a  cab,  as  if  he  thought  that  George  really  meant 
to  pick  her  up  and  carry  her  off  to  his  den-oh,  as 
Mrs.  Glanville  said. 

When  they  had  gone,  George  followed  them  on 
foot,  to  see  her  house,  and  walked  round  Regent's 
Park  before  he  returned  to  his  hotel  in  the  Strand. 
He  remembered  that  he  had  not  kissed  her,  and 
was  glad.  It  was  perfectly  ridiculous  that  they 
could  not  be  married  to-night.  The  reflection  that 
the  lapse  which  had  kept  him  from  Mary  Festing 
had  not  entered  his  head  in  speaking  to  Lesbia 
Garnett  made  him  halt  for  a  moment,  but  he  said, 
"  Oh,  absurd ! "  and  went  on  again.  He  was 


,THE  CATFISH  333 

older  now;  he  saw  things  in  proportion.  Besides, 
Lesbia  was  warmer,  saner,  more  complete,  more 
human.  He  laughed  out  when  he  thought  of  his 
previous  conceptions  of  love;  his  pale  moonsickness 
for  Mary  Festing  and  his  nasty  craving  for  the 
other.  Oh,  yes,  Lesbia  could  and  would  laugh  at 
that. 

He  was  at  the  house  at  nine  o'clock  the  next 
morning.  She  slipped  into  the  room,  shy  for  a 
moment,  and  then  they  met  breast  to  breast  with 
closed  eyes. 

"You're  quite  sure?"  he  said,  holding  her  off 
to  see  her  eyes. 

"If  you  love  me,"  she  said-,  and-  hid  her  face 
again.  She  was  absolutely  perfect,  he  said  to  him- 
self. She  would  not  even  pretend  to  a  sudden 
romantic  passion.  More  than  anything  he  felt  his 
extraordinary  luck.  It  was  quite  obvious  that  any 
good  fellow  might  have  had  the  same  luck;  he 
had  only  come  at  the  right  moment. 

"When  will  you  marry  me?"  he  said. 

"  Whenever  you  like,"  she  said,  keeping  only 
her  eyes  from  him.  He  wanted  to  make  it  next 
week,  but  she  did  not  think  that  her  father  would 
agree  to  such  — 

"  Common-sense  ?  "  he  said. 


334  THE  CATFISH 

"  Yes  —  common-sense,"  she  said,  with  a  wave 
of  color  under  her  golden  skin. 

The  interview  with  Mr.  Garnett  was  good- 
humored  impatience  on  one  side  and  technical 
hesitation  on  the  other.  The  only  thing  that 
bothered  Mr.  Garnett  was  the  absence  of  precedent. 
If  George  could  have  stated  a  case  the  thing  might 
have  been  settled  in  five  minutes.  Mr.  Garnett 
admitted  —  gloried  in  it  —  that  Lesbia  always  did 
what  she  wanted,  and,  as  far  as  George  was  con- 
cerned, he  was  completely  satisfied.  His  good 
friend,  Mrs.  Glanville,  was  recommendation  enough 
for  him.  He  was  immensely  complimentary  about 
the  family  name;  Burroughs  and  Tracy  had  stood 
for  probity  and  dignity,  and  Tracy's  was  only 
proof  of  adaptability  to  environment  in  these  days 
of  more  extended  enterprise. 

•  "  But,  I  say,  you  know,"  he  kept  saying.     "  One 
evening.     Isn't  it  fearfully  precipitate  ?  " 

Recognizing  the  essential  unpracticality  of  the 
legal  mind,  George  suppressed  all  practical  argu- 
ments —  such  as  that  it  always  is  fearfully  precipi- 
tate —  and  talked  of  Lesbia's  obvious  desirability. 
He  couldn't  have  done  better.  He  had  the  history 
of  Lesbia  from  the  cradle,  with  fond  paternal 
chuckles  over  her  headstrong,  or  rather,  heart- 


THE  CATFISH  335 

strong  ways.  "  Since  her  dear  mother  died  she  has 
twirled  me  round  her  little  finger."  The  origin  of 
the  stories  that  George  had  heard  about  Lesbia 
was  made  clear;  it  was  evident  that  the  paternal 
mind  had  even  colored  the  stories  a  little.  With 
secret  amusement  George  recognized  that  the 
father  might  have  given  to  the  most  scandalous 
adventurer  —  as  long  as  he  were  appreciative  — 
what  the  lawyer  made  a  business  of  hesitating  to 
bestow  on  himself.  It  was  remarkable  that  Lesbia 
hadn't  been  snapped  up  —  and  gave  a  flattering  view 
of  her  taste.  The  truth  was  that  the  thing  had 
to  be  talked  over,  and  when  it  had  been  sufficiently 
talked  over  Mr.  Garnett  gave  the  blessing  that  he 
had  been  more  than  ready  to  give  at  the  beginning. 
To  the  legal  mind  the  discussion  served  all  the 
purposes  of  an  extended  courtship. 

The  swift  courtship  that  followed  was  a  deepen- 
ing of  delight.  She  was  even  simpler  than  he  had 
supposed;  in  some  ways  adorably  stupid.  If  her 
laugh  said,  "  God's  in  His  Heaven,"  her  conduct 
assumed  that  "All's  right  with  the  world." 
Brought  up  against  any  evidence  of  cruelty  or 
meanness  that  most  people  learn  to  take  for  granted, 
she  blazed.  "  Horribly  greedy  "  turned  out  to  be 
— whatever  the  opposite  for  euphemism  may  be 


336  THE  CATFISH 

—  for  a  healthy  appreciation  of  the  good  things 
of  life.  She  was  never  so  happy  as  when  basking 
in  the  sun.  Yet  she  was  very  far  from  having 
the  temperament  of  the  odalisk  her  appearance 
might  have  suggested.  Her  management  of  her 
father's  house  indicated  a  real  domesticity,  and  she 
loved  children.  "  She  shall  have  hundreds  of 
children,"  said  George  to  himself  extravagantly. 

Less  from  necessity  than  in  order  to  test  her 
soundness,  he  told  her  that  there  had  been  another 
woman.  She  used  his  own  word. 

"  Nasty  boy,"  she  said,  "  you  might  have  waited 
for  me."  Then,  after  a  moment,  she  added: 
"  But  I  expect  you  did  her  good." 

Though  he  would  not  have  dared  to  put  the 
thought  into  words,  he  felt  that,  somehow,  she  was 
right.  Both  the  lapse  itself  and  his  remorse  for  it 
might  be  put  down  to  his  too  idealistic  conception 
of  human  love. 

They  were  married  within  the  month,  and  he 
carried  her  off  to  Spain.  Acting  on  Mrs.  Glan- 
ville's  advice,  he  had  meant  to  take  her  South; 
but  they  happened  to  break  their  journey  at  San 
Sebastian,  and  so  discovered  the  Basque  Provinces. 
For  the  next  three  weeks  they  loafed  about  in 
villages  with  names,  as  Lesbia  said,  "  like  lizards," 


THE  CATFISH  337 

her  favorite  beasts.  They  stopped  at  Durango; 
where  Carlism  is  talked  under  the  wide  portico  of 
the  church,  and  Guernica,  of  the  famous  "  Tree." 
George  played  pelota  with  the  men,  and  studied 
their  almost  Chinese  cultivation  of  the  soil ;  and  the 
girls  would  link  arms  with  Lesbia  as  in  soundless 
alpargatas  they  trod  the  paseo  on  Sunday  after- 
noons to  the  bubble  and  squeak  of  the  dulsinya  and 
tamboril.  When  George  spoke  of  his  wife,  they 
laughed  knowingly.  They  called  her  "  La  Gaupa  ", 
and  made  her  bare  her  head  and  carry  a  carnation 
in  her  mouth,  and  taught  her  to  dance  the  Zortzico 
and  to  sing  Gucrnicaco  Arbola  —  which  is  the 
Basque  national  anthem. 

It  was  only  the  feeling,  that,  having  come  so  far, 
they  ought  to  see  some  of  the  lions,  that  made 
them  leave  these  friendly  people  and  pay  a  flying 
visit  to  Burgos,  Madrid  and  Toledo.  When  the 
train  had  ascended  the  narrow  Pass  of  Pancorbo 
and  they  were  upon  the  tawny  plain  of  Old  Castile, 
George  began  to  feel  vaguely  disturbed.  Some- 
thing in  the  grave  landscape  called  to  a  part  of 
him  that  was  not  fulfilled  in  his  love  for  the  tran- 
quil woman  at  his  side.  He  felt  it  most  of  all  in 
Toledo,  that  "  cry  in  the  desert "  which  embodies 
the  spiritual  aspiration  of  Spain. 


338  THE  CATFISH 

Lesbia  herself  helped  to  interpret  the  feeling. 
They  were  sitting  one  evening  under  the  arcade 
of  a  cafe  in  the  Zocodover,  the  irregular  place 
which  forms  the  social  center  of  Toledo.  Imme- 
diately opposite  to  them  was  the  horseshoe  arch 
that  leads  to  the  house  of  Cervantes,  and  Lesbia 
began  to  tease  George  about  "  Don  Quixote." 

"  There's  something  of  him  about  you,"  she  said, 
"  though  you  don't  look  it.  There's  a  little  central 
George  that  doesn't  belong  to  me,  and  I'm  sure 
there's  a  Dulcinea  somewhere." 

He  said  the  obvious  thing,  but,  holding  his  arm, 
she  said  composedly: 

"  No,  I'm  the  faithful  Sancho  Panza.  But  you 
can  tilt  at  your  old  windmills  for  her,  so  long  as 
you'll  be  nice  and  comfy  with  me." 

It  was  then  that  there  came  up  the  steps  under 
the  archway  a  tall  woman  bearing  a  water  jar  on 
her  head.  Her  eyes  were  grave  and  she  walked 
with  dignity.  Upon  the  level  she  began  to  cry 
in  a  piercing  tone,  "  A-gua  fresca!"  as  if  it  were 
the  water  of  life. 

"  Isn't  she  like  Mary  Festing?  "  said  Lesbia. 

The  likeness  would  not  have  struck  him,  but  he 
understood  what  she  meant.  It  was  in  the  charac- 
ter of  remoteness.  He  said  something  about  the 


THE  CATFISH  339 

Moorish  blood  in  Toledo,  and  remarked  that  when 
he  first  met  Mary  Festing  she  made  him  think  of 
somebody  out  of  the  'Arabian  Nights. 

"But  do  you  know  Mary  Festing?"  he  said. 

"  I  met  her  at  Mrs.  Glanville's,"  said  Lesbia. 
"  I'm  sure  she's  a  darling,  though  she  frightened 
me  a  little." 

George  was  beginning  to  feel  that  Mary  Festing 
was  a  confounded  nuisance. 

"  Oh,  Mary's  too  bright  and  good  for  anything/' 
he  said. 

Lesbia  laughed  comfortably. 

"  Of  course  she  doesn't  appeal  to  men,"  she  said, 
"  but  I  believe  she  would  do  for  the  little  central 
George.  I  shall  cultivate  her,  and  then  when  you're 
tired  of  kisses  you  can  go  off  together  and  talk 
about  souls." 

At  the  time  he  could  afford  to  enter  into  the 
joke,  but  he  hoped  that  Lesbia  wasn't  going  to 
keep  it  up.  He  had  thought  that  he  was  done 
with  Mary  Festing. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

DIRECTLY  after  their  return  to  Bourneside 
George  began  to  put  his  house  in  order.  He 
had  now  a  leading  motive  in  his  vague  ideas  of 
reconstruction.  He  would  make  the  whole  place 
a  setting  for  his  jewel.  She  must  have  sun,  plenty 
of  sun.  Her  ways  must  be  wide  and  smooth,  be- 
cause she  moved  slowly  and  didn't  much  care  for 
walking. 

Lesbia  dismissed  his  proposal  that  they  should 
go  into  a  cottage  while  the  alterations  were  being 
made;  she  wanted  to  watch  her  home  a-building; 
to  have  it  grow  in  her  heart,  so  that  it  should  be 
scamped  neither  in  workmanship  nor  love. 
She  would  hate  to  step  into  a  ready-made  paradise. 
For  the  present  they  could  picnic  very  well  in  a 
corner  among  the  dreams  and  bogies  of  his  boy- 
hood, and  every  evening,  when  the  workmen  were 
gone,  they  would  peer  and  kiss  by  candle-light 
among  the  giant  shadows  of  the  empty  unfinished 
rooms. 

George  got  down  from  London  a  young  architect 
340 


THE  CATFISH  341 

named  Ledward,  whose  acquaintance  he  had  made 
through  Darragh,  and  with  Lindrop  to  supply 
imagination,  they  held  council  together.  The  men 
sat  about  and  smoked  cigarettes  and  argued,  while 
Lesbia  —  Kate  had  f rocked  her  divinely  —  was 
made  to  stand  here,  to  come  in  at  that  door, 
or  lean  at  that  window.  All  agreed  upon  one 
large  room  with  a  great  hearth,  and  a  wide 
welcoming  entrance  from  the  flagged  court,  where 
in  childhood  George  had  crept  illicitly  round  to 
the  kitchen  or  to  nip  up  the  steps  into  the  Orchard, 
and  a  window  looking  west  into  the  twilight  of 
the  Side  Lawn;  but  the  angle  of  the  hearth  and 
the  turn  of  the  staircase  —  broad  in  the  tread  and 
shallow  in  the  rise,  because  of  the  way  she  moved 
—  were  matters  that  needed  consideration.  Be- 
sides, as  Lesbia  insisted,  there  must  be  no  disturbing 
the  general  atmosphere  of  Bourneside.  There 
must  be  only  a  fulfilment  of  the  dreams  of  his 
boyhood.  "  As  if  they  had  flowered  in  the  sun  — 
that  is,  if  you  really  are  happy  now?"  It  is  to 
be  feared  that  Ledward  and  Lindrop  had  their 
trials. 

Ledward  said  austerely  that  the  thing  couldn't 
be  done.  Sentiment  was  sentiment,  and  building 
was  building. 


342  THE  CATFISH 

"  Is  that  why  most  modern  houses  are  so  incon- 
venient, Mr.  Ledward  ? "  said  Lesbia  sweetly. 

Lindrop,  who  would  have  given  her  a  Moorish 
pavilion  with  Norman  piers  if  she  had  asked  for 
it,  backed  her  up.  He  said  that  modern  architects 
had  no  imagination.  But  when  Ledward  asked 
him  how  he  proposed  to  do  it,  he  could  only  make 
little  noises  in  his  throat  and  vague  lines  in  the 
air.  It  was  Lesbia  who  had  to  show  the  way. 

"  Don't  you  see,  Mr.  Ledward,"  she  said,  sinking 
down  beside  him,  "  it's  the  four  gables  that  must 
be  kept.  Particularly  the  cheeky  way  they  butt- — 
isn't  that  the  word?  —  up  against  the  long  back 
of  what  is  now  the  front  —  if  you  understand  what 
I  mean.  There's  the  sly  little  window  of  the 
room  across  the  landing,  where  George  used  to  creep 
out  when  he  wanted  to  do  Alpine  climbing,  and 
didn't  break  his  precious  neck.  If  you  come  up 
into  the  Orchard  you  can  see  it  winking  at  the 
apple-tree." 

Ledward,  averting  his  eyes,  as  if  he  were  afraid 
she  might  imitate  the  window,  said  that  he  under- 
stood all  that  — 

"Well,"  said  Lesbia,  with  an  impressive  hand 
on  his  arm,  "  '  all  that/  as  you  call  it,  can —  must 
—  be  left  as  it  is.  We  have  to  do  with  the  ground 


THE  CATFISH  343 

floor.  It's  just  a  matter  of  knocking  three  rooms 
into  one  —  the  laundry,  the  storeroom  and  what 
used  to  be  the  library  where  George  did  his  lessons 
—  and  you'll  observe  that  two  of  them  are  already 
flagged ;  the  very  best  foundation  for  a  block  floor, 
I  should  say." 

With  a  not  too  steady  hand  Ledward  made  a 
rough  sketch  while  she  almost  leaned  upon  him. 

"  Yes,"  she  said  encouragingly,  "  you've  got 
the  idea.  As  for  the  top  floor  —  when  you've 
thrown  out  your  jolly  central  landing,  and  decided 
exactly  where  the  staircase  is  to  arrive,  the  four 
rooms  under  the  gables  will  hardly  need  alteration. 
Mr.  Lindrop  shall  treat  them  imaginatively  —  with 
a  view  to  the  temperament  of  probable  guests. 
The  —  the  family  bedroom  —  you  see,  is  over  the 
kitchen.  It  gets  the  dawn.  But  we  can  have  a 
south  window  as  well,  to  complete  your  front; 
and  you'll  have  to  knock  a  doorway  through  into 
the  little  room  that  used  to  be  Amelia's.  That 
will  be  George's  dressing-room.  He  can  lean  out 
of  the  window  over  the  porch,  poor  thing,  between 
the  rose  and  the  jasmine,  and  yearn  to  Dulcinea." 

So,  with  interruptions  and  excursions,  they 
worked  it  out.  The  dining-room  could  remain 
where  it  was.  Nobody,  said  Lesbia,  wanted  sun 


344  THE  CATFISH 

at  meals,  except,  perhaps,  at  breakfast.  For  the 
matter  of  that,  they  could  have  a  little  breakfast- 
room  to  the  right  of  the  porch,  with  an  east  window 
looking  into  the  Yard.  The  nursery,  too,  should 
be  where  it  had  been  before  George  desecrated  it 
with  his  old  rubbish.  They  could  let  in  the  sun 
by  making  windows  in  the  back  wall  overlooking 
the  valleys  between  the  gables. 

Truly,  George  felt,  his  life  was  now  fronting  the 
sun.  He  was  domesticating  his  dreams.  What  in 
childhood  had  been  a  hollow  feeling  in  his  stomach 
was  now  translated  into  gladness  of  heart.  Thus 
the  flagged  way  round  the  back  of  the  house,  though 
enticing,  had  always  filled  him  with  vague  appre- 
hensions. He  perceived  now  that  the  reason  was 
that  the  Orchard  was  higher,  and  its  hedge  flung 
a  green  shade.  The  hedge  must  come  down,  and 
the  ground  should  be  terraced  up  to  the  level  of 
the  tennis-courts.  Opposite  the  welcoming  entrance 
to  what  was  now  to  be  the  front  of  the  house  there 
should  be  steps  —  again  broad  in  the  tread  and 
shallow  in  the  rise,  because  of  the  way  Lesbia 
moved  —  and  flanking  the  steps  there  should  be 
many  flowers.  They  would  go  up,  he  and  she, 
with  their  children  about  them;  and  the  difference 
between  the  way  they  would  go,  and  the  way  he 


THE  CATFISH  345 

had  nipped  up  the  Orchard  steps  as  a  child,  was  the 
difference  between  advancing  upon  joy  with  open 
arms  in  the  eye  of  the  sun  and  darting  into  it  with 
the  sense  of  playing  truant  from  life. 

Beyond  the  tennis-courts  the  Orchard,  except  for 
judicious  renewal,  should  remain  as  it  was.  They 
would  go,  following  the  Bourne,  to  the  deep  and 
rich  activities  of  Gardiner's  field  and  look  toward 
Tracy's,  where  those  activities  found  their  final  ex- 
pression. 

Not  the  least  part  of  his  happiness  was  in  the 
sense  of  living  with  the  Bourne.  Remembering 
his  dream  on  his  first  night  in  London  —  how  he 
tried  to  twist  the  needle  of  his  compass  round 
against  the  current  of  the  Bourne  —  he  was  half 
inclined  to  believe  that  some  of  the  perplexities  of 
his  childhood  had  been  due  to  the  fact  that  he 
was  facing  up-stream.  He  remembered  his  impres- 
sion of  the  front  of  the  house;  it  cowered  against 
an  influence.  With  the  house  turned  round  back 
to  front,  his  life  and  the  Bourne  would  flow  in  the 
same  direction.  Whether  or  not  there  was  any- 
thing in  it,  the  fancy  amused  him.  He  was  right 
with  the  Bourne. 

Then  an  idea  came  to  him  that  gave  him  childish 
pleasure.  He  intended  to  have  electric  light. 


346  THE  CATFISH 

With  Ledward  he  had  already  discussed  the 
question  of  motive  power:  an  engine  driven  by 
hydraulic  pressure  from  the  water-main,  such  as 
was  used  for  blowing  the  organ  up  at  the  church, 
or  a  windmill,  such  as  he  already  used  for  the 
irrigation  of  Gardiner's  field.  Suddenly  he 
thought  of  the  Waterfall.  He  would  harness 
"  Old  Growler."  Quite  apart  from  the  practical 
advantages  —  it  would  not  only  drive  his  dynamo, 
but  supersede  the  windmill  in  Gardiner's  field, 
which  had  never  been  quite  satisfactory  —  there 
was  an  imaginative  pleasure  in  the  idea  that  the 
Waterfall  which  had  disturbed  his  childhood 
should  now  light  his  home.  He  was  domesticating 
not  only  his  dreams,  but  the  very  source  of  them, 
and  the  slight  sense  of  daring  only  added  to  the 
fun  of  the  thing.  It  was  almost  profane,  he 
thought,  as  he  watched  the  water  coming  down 
straight  with  its  transient  quiver  like  the  shaking 
of  spears.  Perhaps  when  he  had  harnessed  "  Old 
Growler  "  he  would  finally  lay  that  unfulfilled  part 
of  him  which  had  so  unaccountably  awakened  upon 
the  tawny  plain  of  Old  Castile. 

Before  the  end  of  the  year  the  work  was  finished ; 
the  house  was  remade  in  the  image  of  their  love, 
yet  not  so  altered  as  to  banish  the  associations  of 


THE  CATFISH  347 

his  childhood.  His  dreams  had  mellowed  in  her 
warm  humanity.  Like  the  body  of  a  violin,  the 
house  rang  true  to  the  vibrations  of  a  sane  and 
joyous  life.  Together  they  would  see  his  queer 
fancies  about  the  house  repeated  more  sunnily  in 
their  children.  Instead  of  an  unexplained  attic, 
where  Things  romped  in  the  night,  there  should 
be  a  secret  chamber,  filled  with  their  common- 
memories  of  the  house's  renewal,  to  baffle  the  lit- 
tle brains  and  perplex  the  little  measuring  hands 
and  clambering  feet.  Love  should  lurk  on  the 
stairs  and  confidence  ripen  like  wine  in  the  cellar. 
Instead  of  in  the  sound  of  "Doom!  "  the  meaning 
of  the  Waterfall  should  be  expressed  in  the  friendly 
glow  of  a  light  that  little  fingers  could  control  at 
will. 

With  every  day  he  was  more  convinced  of  the 
success  of  his  marriage.  Nothing  pleased  him 
more  than  the  sort  of  interest  that  Lesbia  took 
in  his  affairs;  she  was  not  anxious  to  be  consulted, 
but  she  was  never  bored,  and  every  now  and  then 
she  would  make  a  suggestion,  always  wise  and 
human,  which  showed  that  she  followed  sym- 
pathetically what  was  in  his  mind.  In  her  appar- 
ently idle,  unobtrusive  way  she  learned  all  about 
what  was  being  done  in  Gardiner's  field,  and  it 


348  THE  CATFISH 

was  often  to  her  that  Andrews  came  for  directions. 
She  seemed  to  have  the  knack  of  interpreting 
George's  ideas  before  he  had  reasoned  them  out. 
Under  her,  even  during  the  muddle  of  reconstruc- 
tion, the  house  ran  smoothly,  though  she  never 
seemed  to  be  busying  herself  about  household  af- 
fairs. Fussiness  and  irritation  could  not  survive 
in  her  presence. 

At  Tracy's  she  was  adored.  Without  inter- 
fering in  any  department  she  took  in  everything 
with  a  quiet  eye  and  never  forgot  a  name. 
Through  her  the  good-fellowship  that  there  had 
always  been  between  George  and  the  staff  became 
something  like  family  affection.  Observing  that 
the  tennis-court  at  Bourneside  was  being  wasted, 
she  got  the  young  men  and  women  out  to  play  on 
Saturday  afternoons,  and  when  the  weather  failed 
she  started  a  Glee  Gub. 

Apart  from  the  care  of  the  house,  her  only 
personal  occupation  was  music.  It  seemed  to  be 
a  gift  for  which  she  was  not  intellectually  re- 
sponsible. George  declared  that  she  "  read  "  with 
her  ringers  alone,  and  often  she  could  not  remember 
the  name  of  the  composer  she  happened  to  be  play- 
ing. It  was  all  just  music  to  her.  When  she 
sang,  or  rather  crooned,  she  always  closed  her 


THE  CATFISH  349 

eyes,  lifting  her  head  like  an  animal  bemused.  It 
was  a  long  time  before  George  felt  perfectly  con- 
vinced that  there  was  not  a  trace  of  black  blood  in 
her.  Oddly  enough,  it  would  have  appealed  to  him 
as  an  attraction;  as  if  she  summed  up  the  women 
of  all  races. 

Without  making  any  apparent  effort  to  entertain, 
she  quickly  became  a  hostess.  It  was  this  that 
impressed  George's  relations,  who,  though  they  had 
given  his  wife  a  proper  welcome,  were  a  little  un- 
certain whether  they  ought  to  approve  such  haste 
in  wedding.  Like  Mr.  Garnett,  they  wanted 
precedent.  George  was  well  satisfied,  because  he 
saw  that  their  instinctive  liking  outran  their  judg- 
ment; each  member  of  the  quartet  was  a  little 
more  friendly  than  he  or  she  allowed  the  others  to 
see ;  with  an  effect  of  intrigue  that  was  very  amus- 
ing to  witness,  particularly  when  it  came  out  that 
both  Mrs.  Walter  and  Amelia  had  privately  en- 
gaged Lesbia  as  godmother  to  their  respective 
hopes.  Lesbia  blinked  in  her  cat-like  way,  betrayed 
no  secrets,  and  showed  no  favor. 

"  She  just  lies  about  and  people  come  to  her," 
said  Amelia,  and  Walter  summed  up  the  situation 
by  saying  to  George  with  good-humored  envy: 

"The  fact  of  the  matter  is,  old  chap,  you  got 


350  THE  CATFISH 

Bourneside  under  false  pretenses.  Who'd  have 
thought  that  the  dear  old  place  was  going  to  wake 
up  like  this?" 

George  could  not  deny  that  he  enjoyed  the  pop- 
ularity of  his  house.  With  happiness  and  success 
his  social  instincts  were  developing.  He  liked  to 
have  people  about  him  so  long  as  he  did  not  have 
to  bother  about  tiresome  divisions  of  class,  and 
Lesbia  seemed  to  have  the  gift  of  making  people 
forget  them,  so  that  Bourneside  promised  to  be- 
come a  little  center  of  enlightenment. 

As  is  often  the  case  with  delicate  children,  George 
had  grown  into  a  strong  man.  At  thirty  he  was 
in  the  full  enjoyment  of  all  his  powers.  Following 
the  suggestion  of  Lesbia's  remark  on  their  first 
meeting,  he  had  grown  a  beard,  so  that  he  now 
resembled  a  more  active  edition  of  his  father  —  who 
was  still  his  hero.  He  dressed  in  rough  clothes, 
rolled  a  little  in  his  walk,  and  swung  his  arms. 
People  who  did  not  like  him  said  that  he  swag- 
gered. That  was  not  true,  but  he  unconsciously 
dramatized  his  enjoyment  of  health,  happiness  and 
success.  He  saw  pictures  of  the  future,  and  lived 
up  to  them. 

One  picture  that  often  came  into  his  mind  was 
a  subject  for  a  modern  Rubens.  He  saw  himself 


THE  CATFISH  351 

and  Lesbia  with  their  children  on  an  autumn  even- 
ing in  the  Court  in  front  of  the  house.  Lesbia 
should  be  on  his  knee  with  grapes  in  her  lap.  He 
would  have  one  arm  about  her,  and  in  the  other 
hand  he  would  hold  a  goblet  of  golden  wine.  Five 
or  six  children  would  be  grouped  about  them  with 
books  or  fruit  in  their  hands,  and  perhaps  there 
would  be  a  messenger  just  arrived  with  important 
papers. 

Exactly  why  this  picture  should  have  presented 
itself  he  could  not  have  said,  but  he  saw  it  vividly, 
and  was  determined  that  one  day  it  should  be 
painted.  He  doubted  if  Darragh  would  be  the 
painter;  Darragh,  with  all  his  gifts,  would  not  be 
able  to  suggest  the  right  atmosphere  of  health, 
good  living,  prosperity  and  family  affection. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  year,  when  the  first  nov- 
elty of  the  house  had  worn  off,  he  took  Lesbia  up 
to  London.  When  at  Mrs.  Glanville's  they  met 
Mary  Festing,  he  wondered  that  he  could  ever  have 
imagined  himself  to  be  in  love  with  anybody  so  far 
from  his  present  ideal  of  the  perfect  woman.  He 
perceived  how  true  had  been  Doctor  Raymond's 
description  of  her;  she  was  of  the  vestal  type,  a 
natural  celibate.  All  her  emotions  went  into  her 
work  —  though  even  there  they  were,  to  George's 


352  THE  CATFISH 

mind,  a  little  thin.  As  the  critics  said,  her  novels, 
though  clever  and  poetical,  were  lacking  in  warm 
humanity. 

The  meeting  between  the  two  women  interested 
him.  Lesbia  kissed  Mary  impulsively  and  said: 
"  You  knew  George  when  he  was  a  boy."  Mary 
laughed  and  said :  "  Yes,  we  fought  even  then." 
Mary's  manner  irritated  him  a  little.  He  thought 
her  pa-tronizing  and  superior  —  as  if  in  her  heart 
she  despised  domestic  joy.  He  wished  that  she 
were  not  slightly  the  taller  of  the  two.  She  held 
Lesbia's  hands  and  looked  down  at  her  with  grave 
eyes  that  were  yet  a  little  amused.  Lesbia,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  inclined  to  make  too  much  of 
Mary  for  his  liking.  After  all,  she  was  the  mar- 
ried woman.  It  gave  him  satisfaction,  of  which  he 
was  immediately  ashamed,  to  observe  that  Mary 
was  rather  shabbily  dressed. 

Mary,  when  he  found  himself  talking  to  her, 
made  him  feel  aggressive.  She  was  the  only  per- 
son he  knew  to  whom  he  wanted  to  swagger.  With 
a  little  provocation,  he  would  have  boasted  to  her 
about  the  success  of  Tracy's.  Fortunately,  how- 
ever, a  subject  came  up  which  saved  him  from  this 
egregiousness.  It  was  the  time  of  the  South  Afri- 
can War,  and  a  remark  of  Mary's  told  him  that 


,THE  CATFISH  353 

she  was  a  strong  Pro-Boer.  George  himself  had 
by  no  means  made  up  his  mind  about  the  subject; 
he  felt  that  the  war  was  a  mistake,  and  he  instinct- 
ively distrusted  the  people  in  whose  interests  it  had 
been  begun;  but  Mary's  remark  aroused  all  his 
patriotism. 

"  I  suppose  Darragh  has  talked  you  over,"  he 
said. 

Mary  admitted  that  Darragh  agreed  with  her, 
but  claimed  her  own  sympathies. 

"  I'm  always  on  the  side  of  the  little  people," 
she  said. 

Until  then  it  had  not  occurred  to  him  that  they 
were  talking  about  the  same  subject  as  at  their 
first  meeting.  It  must  have  come  to  her  at  the 
same  moment,  for  she  flushed  deeply  and  plucked 
at  her  dress.  Somehow  it  made  him  angry  that  she 
should  remember,  but  he  laughed,  and  said,  "  Yes, 
I  know,"  as  if  to  imply  that  the  memory  was  not 
embarrassing  to  him.  Then  Lesbia  came  over  and 
said:  "What  are  you  two  sparring  about?  " 

"  They  always  do,"  said  Mrs.  Glanville,  and 
Mary  laughed,  and  George  felt  that  "  sparring " 
would  do  well  enough  to  describe  their  relations. 
He  perceived  that  he  had  yet  to  have  it  out  with 
Mary  Festing. 


354  THE  CATFISH 

When  they  were  leaving,  Lesbia  pressed  Mary  to 
come  down  to  Bourneside. 

"  You  can  have  George's  old  room  at  the  top  of 
the  house  to  write  in,"  she  said;  and  then,  with 
pleased  recollection,  "but  of  course  you  will  re- 
membei  it  —  the  room  that  used  to  be  the  nursery. 
It  has  six  windows  now." 

"  How  extravagant !  "  said  Mary,  making  great 
eyes  at  her,  as  one  might  at  a  child.  She  did  not 
seem  at  all  keen  to  accept  the  invitation,  and  George 
wished  that  Lesbia  would  not  be  so  pressing.  In 
the  hansom  he  said  something  of  the  sort,  and 
Lesbia  said  quickly : 

"  You  don't  mind,  do  you  ?  " 

It  was  the  first  time  she  had  asked  him  such  a 
question,  and  it  touched  him  strangely. 

"  Of  course  not,  you  goose,"  he  said,  pressing 
her  hand,  "  not  if  you  like  her." 

"  I  like  her  extraordinarily,"  said  Lesbia  in  a 
reflective  tone,  as  if  surprised  at  her  own  feelings; 
and  then  added,  "  and  I  want  her  to  like  me." 

"  Oh,  Mary  is  quite  a  good  sort,"  he  said  indul- 
gently, "  but  she's  too  intellectual.  All  there  is  of 
her  goes  into  her  books." 

'  That's  only  because  she  wants  petting  and  feed- 
ing up,"  said  Lesbia,  "  and  I  believe  that  if  you 


THE  CATFISH  355 

really  took  the  trouble  to  get  below  the  surface 
you'd  find  her  interesting  as  a  woman."  Then  she 
laughed  mischievously  and  went  on :  "  Besides, 
she  will  be  good  for  you  —  for  the  central  George. 
I  know  you  better  than  you  do  yourself.  There's 
a  little  poet  in  you  that  mustn't  be  let  die  of  con- 
tentment." 

It  was  all  so  innocently  said  that  George  could  only 
give  proofs  of  his  contentment.  "  The  poet  that 
could  not  survive  you  is  not  worth  rearing,"  he 
«aid.  But  when  he  helped  her  out  of  the  hansom 
at  the  door  of  their  hotel  he  had  the  strange  thought 
that  Lesbia  must  be  protected  against  the  influence 
of  Mary  Festing. 

Lesbia,  who  was  extremely  anxious  to  make  the 
acquaintance  of  all  his  friends,  asked  him  to  take 
her  to  Darragh's  studio.  Feeling  that  he  had 
rather  neglected  Darragh  of  late  years,  he  gladly 
seized  the  opportunity,  and  in  this  case  the  intro- 
duction was  a  triumphant  success.  Darragh  showed 
his  admiration  of  Lesbia  in  every  glance.  She, 
frankly  ignorant  of  painting,  was  interested  in  ev- 
erything she  saw,  but  most  in  Darragh,  and  George 
had  the  remorseful  feeling  that  she  was  wondering 
why  he  had  not  made  more  of  the  friendship. 
There  was  no  reason  why  he  hadn't,  except  the 


356  THE  CATFISH 

feeling  that  Darragh  had  grown  out  of  sympathy 
with  him.  He  reflected  that  there  were  things  in 
his  friendship  with  Darragh,  as  with  Mary,  that 
he  couldn't  explain  even  to  himself.  But  it  would 
be  easier  now.  That  was  the  joy  of  Lesbia;  she 
made  all  human  relations  easier. 

Looking  round  the  poorly  furnished  studio,  he 
was  at  first  inclined  to  think  that  Darragh's  paint- 
ing had  not  improved.  He  had  changed  his  style. 
George  had  a  keen  appreciation  of  pictures,  but  his 
technical  knowledge  did  not  enable  him  to  judge 
of  more  than  good  color  and  correct  drawing.  He 
had  nothing  to  find  fault  with  in  Darragh's  pic- 
tures —  romantic  landscapes  with  figures,  and  an 
unfinished  portrait  or  two  —  in  these  respects,  but 
they  looked  to  him  curiously  flat,  and  the  shapes 
of  things  seemed  to  have  been  wilfully  altered. 
He  tried  to  explain  what  he  felt  about  them,  and 
Darragh  said  modestly : 

"  I'm  experimenting.  It  seems  to  me  that  things 
must  be  made  to  mean  more,  and  I  don't  think  you 
can  do  it  by  making  them  look  more  real.  But  if 
they  don't  come  off  with  you,  it  shows  that  I  haven't 
succeeded  in  getting  the  form  right.  It  will  come 
presently  —  at  least  I  believe  I'm  on  the  right  tack." 

At  the  time  George  did  not  quite  understand  what 


THE  CATFISH  357 

he  meant,  and  it  was  clear  from  Darragh 's  casual 
remarks  that  his  present  work  was  even  less  pop- 
ular than  his  more  realistic  painting  had  been.  But 
when  George  and  Lesbia  had  left  the  studio,  after 
asking  Darragh  to  dine  with  them  at  their  hotel, 
he  found  that  the  pictures  he  had  seen  did  come 
off  with  him  in  a  curious  way.  They  seemed  to 
get  down  to  a  deeper  layer  of  him  than  pictures 
generally  did.  He  resented  the  effect  a  little,  as 
if  he  were  being  made  to  confess  his  more  intimate 
feelings  about  nature,  but  while  he  was  trying  to 
discover  what  it  meant,  Lesbia  switched  him  off 
by  saying:  "  I  wonder  if  Mr.  Darragh  and  Mary 
Festing  will  ever  marry." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  think  so,"  he  said,  feeling  slightly 
shocked. 

"They  are  great  friends,  aren't  they?"  said 
Lesbia. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  but  somehow  one  does  not 
think  of  Mary  as  a  marrying  person." 

Lesbia  laughed  and  said :  "  Not  indiscriminately, 
you  Turk.  Some  women  will  marry  anybody,"  she 
went  on,  pinching  his  arm,  "  and  some  are  more 
exacting." 

"  That's  only  a  ribald  way  of  saying  the  same 
thing,"  he  said.  "  Mary  is  a  cold  person."  He 


358  THE  CATFISH 

was  half  inclined  to  quote  Doctor  Raymond,  but 
somehow  it  seemed  feeble  to  do  so. 

" '  Cold  hands  and  a  warm  heart/  "  quoted  Les- 
bia,  as  they  paced  along  arm  in  arm.  "  Anyhow," 
she  added,  "  if  Mary  fell  in  love  I  believe  she  would 
be  absolutely  reckless." 

That  made  him  laugh,  and  he  said: 

"  Well,  they're  a  long  time  exploding,  and  I 
don't  think  the  delay  is  Darragh's." 

"  But  she  might  marry  him  in  the  end  to  make 
him  happy,  stupid,"  said  Lesbia. 

At  the  time  he  put  it  down  to  the  match-making 
instinct  of  the  happy  wife.  Nor  when  Darragh 
came  to  dinner,  though  he  talked  about  Mary,  did 
he  say  anything  to  suggest  that  there  was  any 
change  in  the  brother-and-sisterly  relations  between 
them.  By  this  time,  George's  thoughts  about  Dar- 
ragh's pictures  had  taken  a  practical  turn.  With 
some  diffidence,  he  asked  him  if  he  would  do  a 
poster  for  "Tracy's." 

"  I  can't  get  just  what  I  want,"  he  said.  "  Old 
IJndrop  makes  a  very  pretty  picture,  but  when  you 
get  across  the  road  it  all  goes  into  a  mush.  And 
the  other  fellows  don't  seem  to  have  any  idea  be- 
yond putting  the  actual  thing  on  the  hoardings. 
But  your  work  seems  to  stick  in  the  mind  —  quite 


THE  CATFISH  359 

apart  from  what  it  represents.  I  think  the  outline 
has  something  to  do  with  it.  However,  if  you 
don't  think  it's  coming  down  — " 

"  On  the  contrary,"  said  Darragh,  "  it's  a  great 
compliment.  That's  exactly  what  I'm  trying  to 
do.  To  get  there  without  people  knowing.  Of 
course,  the  thing  must  be  treated  differently  to 
carry  across  the  road  instead  of  only  across  a  small 
room,  but  it's  the  same  principle.  We've  got  to 
cure  people  of  their  intelligence  before  there's  any 
chance  for  painting  in  this  country." 

The  subject  led  them  into  an  eager  discussion, 
and,  altogether,  George  felt  that  he  was  nearer  to 
Darragh  than  he  had  been  for  some  time.  He  put 
it  down  to  Lesbia;  she  seemed  to  absorb  everything 
in  his  nature  that  he  had  ever  found  embarrassing. 
When  he  was  leaving,  Darragh  shyly  expressed  to 
George  his  admiration  of  Lesbia.  He  found  the 
right  word  for  her :  "  Giorgionesque."  He  would 
like  to  paint  her  in  an  autumnal  landscape. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

EARLY  in  June  Lesbia  gave  birth  to  a  daugh- 
ter. It  was  at  once  evident  that  she  was  a 
born  mother.  She  nursed  the  child  herself,  and 
behaved  to  it  with  that  brooding  animal  fondness 
which  is  so  much  more  significant  than  sentimental 
raptures.  George  was  delighted.  He  wished  to 
have  many  children ;  all  his  ideas  ran  in  the  direction 
of  productiveness.  But  when  Mary  Festing  came 
down  in  September  George  felt  absurdly  shy  at 
meeting  her  in  the  presence  of  the  child.  He  knew 
that  she  liked  children,  but  his  conception  of  her 
character  led  him  to  suppose  that  she  must  despise 
the  human  weakness  implied  in  their  origin.  If  she 
did  she  concealed  the  fact,  and  babbled  over  the 
baby  as  foolishly  as  any  girl,  though  George  was 
persuaded  that  her  attitude  to  him  was  now  subtly 
humorous.  This  kept  him  a  little  on  the  self-as- 
sertive side,  as  if  he  had  to  prove  that  he  and  his 
affairs  were  really  important.  But  that  was  only 
when  they  happened  to  be  alone  together.  In  pub- 

360 


THE  CATFISH  361 

lie  she  seemed  to  acquiesce  in  the  convention  that 
they  were  always  sparring. 

The  affection  between  her  and  Lesbia  was  too 
real  to  be  questioned.  Neither  was  demonstrative, 
but  they  seemed  to  fit  into  each  other  with  the 
quiet  assurance  of  complementary  parts.  When 
Mary  was  not  working  they  spent  most  of  their 
time  in  the  Orchard  with  the  baby  between  them. 
They  might  have  been  the  contrasted  guardians 
of  infancy  in  an  allegorical  picture.  Coming  upon 
them,  the  black  head  and  the  tawny  bent  over  the 
merely  fluffy  one,  George  was  inclined  to  say, 
"  Soul  and  body  " —  though  he  would  not  admit 
the  full  antithesis  for  what  it  implied.  Lesbia  had 
soul  enough  for  him.  She  was  Aphrodite  Pande- 
mos,  "  mother  and  lover  of  men  " ;  Mary  was  — 
but  even  Artemis  had  stooped  divinely.  No;  she 
was  Pallas  Athene  by  virtue  of  her  trade.  Physic- 
ally, she  did  stoop  divinely,  but  that  was  a  mere 
trick.  The  habit  of  her  trade  —  or  possibly  some- 
body, Darragh,  for  example,  had  told  her  that  it 
gave  concentration  to  her  eyes  and  set  off  the 
nape  of  her  neck.  Even  these  coldly  intellectual 
women  were  not  above  such  vanities.  He  was 
quite  ready  to  elaborate  a  theory  that  they  were 
the  real  wantons  of  their  sex.  They  had  nothing 


362  THE  CATFISH 

to  give,  and  yet  they  claimed  attention  to  their 
bodily  charms.  Poor  old  Darragh!  In  homely 
language,  she  ought  to  be  smacked. 

Although  he  was  not  in  the  least  jealous  of 
Lesbia's  affection  for  Mary,  its  results  occasionally 
irritated  him.  He  was  not  "  left  out  of  it "  -but 
rather  the  reverse.  On  his  approach  to  the  group 
the  two  women  would  open  out  to  enclose  him  —  as 
if,  he  said  to  himself,  Mary  were  a  complementary 
part  of  his  domestic  bliss.  He  felt  inclined  to  say 
to  Lesbia,  "  She's  your  friend,  not  mine."  By  this 
time  Lesbia  had  got  over  her  exaggerated  respect 
for  Mary,  though  she  still  treated  her  as  a  moral 
superior.  Not,  however,  with  envy,  but  in  a  lazy 
humorous  way;  a  Sancho  Panza  way,  as  to  a 
person  too  bright  and  good  for  anything. 

Sometimes  he  caught  himself  wishing  that  a  sit- 
uation would  arise  in  which  he  and  Mary  would  be 
pulling  Lesbia  opposite  ways.  Then  he  and  Mary 
could  have  it  out  at  last.  He  knew  that  there  were 
quite  a  lot  of  things  he  had  saved  up  to  get  off  to 
her,  though,  in  cold  blood,  and  without  reasonable 
provocation,  he  could  not  say  what  they  were. 
Apart  from  the  satisfaction  of  having  it  out,  he 
would  like  to  see  her  flash  out  again  as  she  had 
flashed  out  in  the  nursery  at  their  first  meeting.  On 


THE  CATFISH  363 

the  rare  occasions  when  he  visited  her  in  the  room 
that  had  been  the  nursery,  now,  he  talked  to  her 
rather  stiffly  about  the  views  from  the  windows.  It 
seemed  a  matter  of  principle  not  to  be  interested  in 
her  work  that  lay  upon  his  desk.  When  Lesbia, 
enfolding  them  both  in  her  warm  slow  smile,  said 
luxuriously,  "  What  a  rich  atmosphere  Barbara  will 
enjoy  when  she  is  big  enough  to  play  here  —  your 
childhood,  and  Mary's  romances,"  he  said,  in  a 
boyishly  aggressive  tone,  "  Well,  at  any  rate,  they 
won't  mix";  and  Mary  laughed  out  as  he  had 
never  heard  her  laugh  before.  Lesbia  came  down 
on  his  shoulder  with,  "  You  darling !  "  and  for  once 
he  received  the  soft  weight  of  her  unresponsively, 
and  said  something  about  the  over-subtlety  of  fem- 
inine humor. 

With  the  best  will  in  the  world  he  could  not 
continue  to  call  Mary  superior  to  his  affairs.  She 
made  friends  with  Andrews,  who  said  that  she  was 
"  a  very  intelligent  woman,"  and  she  took  a  healthy 
interest  in  Tracy's.  Lindrop's  efforts  to  hit  the 
right  note  of  sentimental  regret  with  her  without 
prejudice  to  his  present  admirers  were  amusing; 
though  mingled  with  his  amusement  George  had 
the  sheepish  recollection  that  once  upon  a  time  he 
had  been  concerned  to  know  the  exact  relations 


364  THE  CATFISH 

between  Mary  and  Lindrop.  He  observed  that  Kate 
Flanders,  though  she  evidently  disapproved  of 
Mary's  clothes,  regarded  her  with  special  interest. 
Kate  had  an  unerring  eye  for  problems  of  tempera- 
ment. Lindrop  was  with  them  when  George  took 
Mary  into  Kate's  department,  and  while  they  were 
talking  Kate  rolled  a  speculative  eye  from  Mary 
to  Lindrop,  and  then  smiled  compassionately,  as 
if  to  say :  "  No,  you're  not  the  explanation,  my 
good  man."  George  would  have  liked  to  know 
what  Kate  thought  of  Mary.  What  made  it  all 
the  more  tantalizing  was  that  when  they  came  out 
Mary  wanted  to  know  all  about  Kate.  She  had 
heard  Mrs.  Glanville  speak  of  her.  George  told 
her  how  loyally  Kate  had  backed  him  up,  how  loy- 
ally everybody  had  backed  him  up,  in  fact,  and  Mary 
said :  "  After  all,  people  are  human,  you  see." 
He  could  never  be  quite  sure  that  she  was  not 
laughing  at  him. 

If  she  had  any  reserve  about  Tracy's,  it  was 
clearly  not  on  account  of  what  things  were  being 
done  there.  It  was  only  his  doing  them  that  she 
seemed  to  find  vaguely  unsatisfactory.  Not  because 
they  were  unimportant  in  themselves,  but  either 
because  they  did  not  go  far  enough  or  were  done 
with  a  wrong  motive.  She  left  him  with  the  uneasy 


THE  CATFISH  365 

inclination  to  ask  her :  "  Well,  what  do  you 
want?" 

Unlike  Lesbia,  Mary  was  a  good  walker,  and 
Lesbia  was  relentless  in  making  George  take  her 
out.  He  was  not  in  the  least  unwilling  to  do  so, 
but  for  the  implication  that  Lesbia  saw  in  Mary 
something  that  she  herself  could  not  supply.  If 
he  wanted  exercise,  he  was  in  no  particular  need 
of  a  companion.  Nor  did  he  believe  that  Mary 
really  wanted  him.  Lesbia  had  a  superstition  that 
they  were  "  good  for  "  each  other.  "  Now,  Mary," 
she  would  say,  "  take  him  out  and  make  him 
talk." 

In  the  result  the  walks  were  pleasant  enough. 
He  was  surprised  to  find  how  well  Mary  knew  his 
country,  though  in  the  month  or  so  that  she  had 
spent  with  the  Markhams  as  a  little  girl  she  could 
not  have  made  many  excursions.  Her  knowledge 
was  not  so  much  topographical  as  atmospheric; 
she  seemed  to  know  what  places  "  meant "  for  him. 
His  own  references  to  his  childhood  were  curt  and 
dry,  conveyed  in  a  grunt  or  a  gesture  as  they  swung 
through  a  lane  or  halted  on  a  hill-top;  and  it  was 
more  often  she  than  he  who  recalled  them.  Occa- 
sionally she  remembered  things  he  had  forgotten. 
He  concluded  that  Darragh  had  talked  to  her. 


366  THE  CATFISH 

He  did  not  take  her  to  the  Grove.  He  resented 
the  feeling  that  kept  him  from  doing  so,  but  it 
had  to  be  obeyed.  Though  he  did  not  think  it 
likely,  he  sometimes  wondered  if  Lesbia  had  told 
her  about  Mrs.  Lorimer.  The  only  way  in  which 
Mrs.  Lorimer  bothered  him  now  was  in  the  re- 
flection that  while  she  had  seemed  an  obstacle  to 
Mary,  when  he  imagined  himself  to  be  in  love  with 
her,  she  had  not  seemed  an  obstacle  to  Lesbia.  In 
reason,  there  was  a  quite  satisfactory  explanation 
in  Lesbia's  human  sympathy;  but  something  be- 
yond reason  left  him  dissatisfied.  There  were 
moments  when  he  had  the  tantalizing  thought  that 
it  was  not  Mary  herself,  but  some  undefined  rela- 
tion between  him  and  her,  that  was  hurt  by  Mrs. 
Lorimer,  but  he  could  not  work  it  out  satisfactorily. 
Anyhow,  as  he  admitted  to  himself,  the  practical 
result  was  that  he  could  not  take  Mary  into  the 
Grove. 

On  their  walks  he  generally  found  himself  the 
active  talker  —  partly  from  the  desire  to  keep  the 
conversation  away  from  the  associations  of  his 
childhood.  It  was  a  matter  of  real  concern  to  him 
that  both  Mary  and  Darragh  seemed  very  badly 
off.  From  the  nature  of  their  work  he  supposed 
that  neither  could  expect  any  great  popularity,  but 


THE  CATFISH  367 

he  was  inclined  to  believe  that  they  did  not  get 
the  most  out  of  what  commercial  opportunities  they 
respectively  had.  The  results  of  his  own  investi- 
gations into  the  problems  of  shopkeeping  led  him 
to  assume  that  the  distribution  of  books  and  pic- 
tures was  not  any  better  managed  than  that  of 
anything  else.  In  the  case  of  books  he  had  proved 
it  —  so  far  as  it  could  be  proved  in  a  provincial 
town.  But  when  he  talked  to  Mary  about  the 
subject  she  seemed  contented  with  her  small  circu- 
lation. She  admitted  that  there  were  stupidities, 
that  the  success  of  a  novel  was  artificially  limited 
by  the  pathetic  reliance  of  possible  readers  on  the 
ordinary  channels  of  distribution,  but  she  said : 

"  After  all,  the  only  success  worth  having  is  the 
success  you  can't  help." 

It  sounded  like  a  cry  out  of  his  boyhood,  and 
called  up  a  vivid  picture  of  his  interview  with  the 
Head  of  St.  Piran's.  For  a  moment  he  was  dis- 
concerted. He  had  the  obscure  feeling  that  it 
somehow  tampered  with  the  foundations  of 
Tracy's,  but  he  said  to  himself  that  he  could 
reconcile  that,  and  went  on,  impatiently: 

"  Yes,  but  you  can  at  least  meet  it  half-way." 

"  If  you  can  meet  it  with  the  whole  of  yourself," 
she  said  rather  breathlessly.  He  felt  sure  that  she 


368  THE  CATFISH 

was  thinking  of  him  rather  than  herself,  and  he 
was  tempted  to  say :  "  Do  you  mean  that  I'm  not 
getting  the  whole  of  myself  into  Tracy's?  "but 
shirked  it  and  said:  "Ah,  you're  incorruptible." 

They  walked  in  silence  for  a  few  steps,  and 
then  she  said: 

"  By  the  way,  I've  never  thanked  you  for  the 
way  you've  boomed  me  down  here." 

"  Oh,  that's  Blaker  —  he's  one  of  your  fervents," 
he  said. 

"  Ah,  you're  uncompromising,"  she  said  with  a 
faint  mimicry  of  his  last  remark  but  one. 

He  laughed,  though  he  did  not  quite  see  what  she 
was  driving  at,  and  went  on :  "  No,  but  seriously, 
without  conceding  anything,  it  is  possible  to  put, 
or  to  see  that  other  people  put,  your  work  out  to 
the  best  advantage."  He  spoke  of  Darragh's  re- 
fusal to  send  to  the  Academy  and  his  indifference 
to  introductions  that  might  lead  to  commissions  for 
portraits.  In  the  case  of  Darragh,  Mary  was  will- 
ing to  admit  a  neglect  of  opportunities. 

"  But  he's  absolutely  unworldly,"  she  said ;  "  so 
it  really  amounts  to  the  same  thing.  He  wouldn't 
be  completely  himself  if  he  hustled  round." 

The  frankness  with  which  she  spoke  of  DarragH 
convinced  George  that  there  was  nothing  in  Lesbia's 


THE  CATFISH  369 

match-making  speculations.  There  was  no  reason 
why  Mary  should  hesitate  to  tell  him  if  she  and 
Darragh  had  any  idea  of  getting  married.  Besides, 
so  far  as  her  being  a  helpmate  to  Darragh  was 
concerned,  it  evidently  wasn't  necessary;  her  re- 
marks showed  the  most  intimate  knowledge  of  his 
affairs.  She  went  on  to  say  that  Darragh  was  now 
engaged  upon  some  decorations  for  a  schoolroom 
in  the  south  of  London.  It  was  a  commission  that 
brought  him  little  more  than  the  cost  of  materials, 
but  he  had  put  more  profitable  work  aside  to  carry 
it  out. 

That  gave  George  an  idea  —  or  rather  two. 
The  first  was  that  he  might  be  able  to  get  Darragh 
commissions  for  decorative  panels  in  some  of  Lin- 
drop's  "  interiors,"  Lindrop  having  now  recognized 
that  he  could  not  paint  up  to  the  level  of  his  de- 
signs; and  the  second  was  that  possibly  Mary's 
vague  dissatisfaction  with  Tracy's  was  due  to 
its  having  no  sociological  purpose. 

He  had  observed  that  both  Mary  and  Darragh 
were  interested  in  "  betterment  "  schemes.  The  in- 
terest, indeed,  was  reflected  in  her  novels,  and  he 
had  chaffed  her  about  the  risks  of  writing  with  a 
purpose.  Her  defense  was  that  she  didn't;  but 
merely  said  what  she  felt  about  things.  Apart 


370  THE  CATFISH 

from  that,  she  and  Darragh  were  in  the  habit  of 
East  End-ing,  as  he  called  it.  They  lent  a  hand 
in  settlement  work,  and  had  many  friends  among 
the  labor  people.  George  himself  being  unsympa- 
thetic, he  only  heard  of  their  doings  by  casual  allu- 
sions, and  he  had  supposed  that  they  represented 
not  more  than  the  vague  socialistic  aspirations  of 
the  artistic  mind.  In  passing,  he  had  noted  as  a 
paradox  that  Mary's  temperamental  coldness  did 
not  make  her  shrink  from  contact  with  the  sort  of 
people  who  might  be  described  as  publicans  and 
sinners. 

Now  he  began  to  wonder  if  what  Mary  missed 
in  him  were  the  social  conscience.  He  rather  hoped 
it  was,  because  he  felt  that  he  could  give  a  good 
account  of  himself  in  that  respect.  Like  his  father, 
he  had  a  strong  dislike  of  anything  theoretical. 
He  had  got  a  little  farther  than  sitting  tight  upon 
the  land  as  a  panacea,  but  he  still  believed  that 
the  best  way  to  improve  social  conditions  was  for 
everybody  to  mind  his  own  business.  He  did  not 
set  out  to  be  a  social  reformer,  but  his  notion  of 
such  was  the  enlightened  despot.  Cooperation 
might  be  encouraged,  and  he  could  show  that 
Tracy's  encouraged  it  not  only  in  agriculture, 
but  by  providing  a  market  for  village  industries. 


THE  CATFISH  371 

In  one  or  two  cases  it  had  revived  them.  Nor  was 
he  averse  from  the  principle  of  profit-sharing;  each 
of  his  employees  had  an  interest  in  the  concern. 
Moreover,  though  he  would  have  disclaimed  the 
wish  to  pose  as  a  public  benefactor,  he  had  certain 
schemes  in  mind  for  the  improvement  of  his  native 
city.  At  present  he  had  not  enough  capital  to  carry 
any  one  of  them  through  unaided,  and  he  preferred 
to  wait  until  he  had.  Not  from  the  wish  to  glorify 
himself,  but  because  he  believed  that  the  best  way 
to  get  anything  done  was  to  do  it  and,  if  necessary, 
ask  for  support  afterward. 

The  idea  that  Mary  was  finding  fault  with  him 
on  sociological  grounds  amused  him.  He  would 
welcome  an  opportunity  to  have  a  slap  at  the  doc- 
trinaires. He  did  not  say  anything  at  the  moment, 
but  during  the  rest  of  her  visit  he  trailed  his  coat 
a  little  in  that  direction.  Mary  refused  to  be  drawn 
into  a  personal  attack,  though  her  general  remarks 
confirmed  his  belief  that  she  did  think  him  lacking 
in  public  spirit.  He  would  hardly  have  admitted 
that  her  implied  criticism  had  any  practical  effect 
upon  him,  but  he  found  himself  paying  more  par- 
ticular attention  than  before  to  the  way  Tracy's 
worked  out  in  relation  to  the  community  in  general. 
He  was  half-consciously  making  out  his  case  — 


372  THE  CATFISH 

perhaps  the  first  stage  in  the  awakening  of  the  social 
conscience. 

One  evening  in  December  when  he  came  home 
rather  tired  and  grumpy  from  Tracy's,  Lesbia 
greeted  him  with:  "  What  did  I  tell  you?  —  Miles 
and  Mary  are  married." 

He  was  unreasonably  irritated.  The  first  thought 
that  came  into  his  head  was  that  Lesbia  had  been 
in  their  secret,  but  her  shining  face  dismissed  it, 
and  as  he  took  the  letter  from  her  hand,  he  said : 

"  Well,  they  might  have  told  us." 

"  But  aren't  you  glad?  "  said  Lesbia,  shaking  his 
arm. 

"Of  course,  I'm  delighted,"  he  said;  "but  it 
would  have  been  more  friendly  of  them  to  have 
taken  us  into  their  confidence." 

"  Oh,  I  can  understand  it  perfectly,"  said  Lesbia. 
"  I'm  not  a  bit  surprised.  They  didn't  want  any 
fuss  made,  and  they  must  have  known  that  to 
people  who  knew  them  well  it  would  seem  rather 
—  well,  rather  pedestrian.  Miles  is  not  like  you, 
you  savage.  I  can  quite  understand  their  being 
shy  about  it.  They  wanted  to  get  it  over  first. 
Besides,  we're  the  first  people  they've  told  except 
his  mother." 


THE  CATFISH  373 

Mary's  letter  to  Lesbia  was  affectionate  but  quite 
unapologetic.  They  were  married  a  fortnight  ago 
at  the  registrar's  and  were  now  just  back  from 
Paris.  For  the  present  they  intended  to  live  in 
Mary's  rooms. 

There  was  nothing  that  any  reasonable  person 
could  wonder  at,  and  with  Lesbia  simmering  at 
his  elbow,  George  had  to  make  worldly-wise  remarks 
to  conceal  his  repugnance. 

"  Didn't  Mary  give  you  any  hint  when  she  was 
here  ?  "  he  said,  as  he  folded  up  the  letter. 

"  Not  a  word,"  said  Lesbia,  "  though,  of  course, 
I  had  my  own  ideas." 

"  I  believe  you  put  it  into  her  head,"  he  said 
rather  fatuously. 

"  I  dare  say  we  encouraged  her,"  said  Lesbia, 
with  a  comfortable  little  laugh.  Then  rubbing  her 
cheek  against  his  arm,  she  went  on :  "  Oh,  George, 
don't  you  understand?  Mary  is  not  a  very  young 
woman,  and  why  shouldn't  she  have  a  little  joy 
of  her  life?  She  knew  that  Miles  was  in  love  with 
her." 

"  But  that's  an  old  story,"  he  said. 
"  I  must  say  I  don't  quite  understand  why  she 
kept  him  waiting,"   Lesbia  admitted.     "  My  own 


374  THE  CATFISH 

idea,"  she  went  on  after  a  pause,  "  is  that  Mary 
had  some  affair." 

"  Did  she  say  so?  "  he  said  quickly. 

"  Not  she,"  said  Lesbia  with  scorn.  "  I  once 
asked  her  if  she  had  ever  had  a  lover,  and  she 
laughed  and  opened  her  eyes  —  you  know  the  way 
she  does  when  she  wants  to  put  you  off  —  and  said : 
'  He  wouldn't  have  me,  my  che-ild.'  But  she  kissed 
me  directly  afterward,"  she  added  reflectively. 

"  Well,  it's  astonishing,"  he  said. 

Lesbia  looked  at  him  rather  compassionately. 

"  You  know,  George,"  she  said,  "  I  can't  help 
thinking  that  you  somehow  got  a  wrong  idea  about 
Mary.  You  put  her  on  a  sort  of  pedestal  that  she 
wouldn't  in  the  least  lay  claim  to.  I  believe  she 
feels  it  a  little.  After  all,  women  are  not  very  dif- 
ferent from  men,  only  they're  not  so  frank  about 
it.  Of  course,  men  haven't  the  same  opportunities 
of  finding  out,  but  I've  never  heard  Mary  say  any- 
thing that  would  lead  me  to  suppose  that  she  was 
cold.  I  think  you  do  her  an  injustice." 

There  was  not  an  atom  of  reproach  in  it  on  her 
own  account,  but  it  made  him  feel  that  his  notion 
of  Mary  was  an  injustice  to  Lesbia,  and  he  kissed 
her  remorsefully,  saying: 


THE  CATFISH  375 

"  I  suppose  I  have  got  into  the  way  of  thinking 
her  a  bit  of  a  prig." 

He  wanted  to  get  away  and  think  it  over.  It 
was  not  so  much  the  event  as  his  own  feelings 
about  it  that  disturbed  him.  Until  now  he  had  not 
fully  recognized  how  much  Doctor  Raymond's  re- 
mark had  weighed  in  his  conception  of  Mary.  He 
felt  as  if  he  had  been  cheated.  That  transferred 
his  anger  from  Doctor  Raymond  to  himself,  and 
he  said  that  it  was  all  nonsense;  that  the  truth  of 
the  matter  was  that  his  ideas  of  order  had  been  up- 
set. The  disturbance  was  purely  intellectual.  He 
had  thought  of  a  woman  in  one  way,  and  now  he 
must  think  of  her  in  another  way,  and  the  jolt  was 
naturally  disconcerting.  The  result  was  to  make 
him  unusually  tender  to  Lesbia,  as  if  to  prove  that 
they  were  the  people  who  really  understood,  and 
they  wrote  a  joint  letter  to  the  Darraghs,  upbraid- 
ing them  for  their  secretiveness,  but  congratulating 
them  on  their  conversation  to  common-sense. 


CHAPTER  XX 

IN  five  years  Lesbia  had  borne  him  three  chil- 
dren, with  only  a  deepening  of  wisdom  in  her 
amber  eyes  to  betray  the  cares  of  motherhood.  She 
was  mistress  and  wife  in  one,  sleepily  passionate  and 
splendidly  sane.  His  life  with  her  continued  to  be 
a  golden  dream  come  true.  If  there  were  times 
when  he  was  conscious  of  an  unfulfilled  part  of 
himself  that  walked  alone  in  a  far  place,  he  put  it 
down  to  a  defect  of  temperament,  and  turned  to 
her  arms  to  be  made  whole  again. 

George  soon  got  used  to  the  idea  of  Darragh's 
marriage,  and  he  found  that  it  put  their  friendship 
on  a  more  comfortable  footing  than  before.  He 
had  long  looked  upon  Darragh  and  Mary  as  natural 
allies  in  a  way  of  thinking  that  was  different  from 
and,  to  a  certain  extent,  tacitly  critical  of  his  own. 
They  stood  for  plain  living  and  high  thinking,  the 
cult  of  the  "little  people."  He  had  enough  sym- 
pathy with  their  point  of  view  to  make  encounters 
amusing,  and  Lesbia  was  an  admirable  audience. 
She,  as  she  said,  "  held  their  coats." 

376 


THE  CATFISH  377 

The  first  time  George  met  the  Darraghs  after 
their  marriage  he  was  struck  by  Mary's  protective 
attitude  to  her  husband.  She  had  always  kept  a 
sisterly  eye  upon  his  worldly  affairs,  but  now  she 
was,  at  any  rate  to  George,  a  little  defiant.  The 
impression  he  got  was  that  she  thought  of  him  in 
relation  to  Darragh  very  much  as  he  had  once 
thought  of  her  in  relation  to  Lesbia  —  though  he 
could  not  find  a  reason  in  either  case.  Certainly 
his  feelings  with  regard  to  Darragh  were  never 
anything  but  affectionate,  and  he  concluded  that 
Mary  was  afraid  that  he  would  try  to  tempt  her 
husband  away  from  the  paths  of  artistic  rectitude. 
He  had  no  such  intention,  though  he  took  every 
opportunity  to  put  attractive  work  in  Darragh's 
way. 

The  Darraghs  often  came  down  to  Bourneside, 
and  one  summer  the  Tracys  spent  a  holiday  with 
them  in  Cornwall,  where  George  was  glad  to  renew 
his  acquaintance  with  Miles'  mother,  whom  he  had 
only  seen  at  rare  intervals  since  the  days  of  St. 
Piran's.  He  liked  her  as  much  as  ever,  though 
to  him  her  manner  was  now  slightly  nervous  and 
apologetic.  It  made  him  feel  that  he  had  drifted 
away  from  the  atmosphere  in  which  she  had  formed 
her  ideas  about  him.  Since  Miles  and  Mary  re- 


378  THE  CATFISH 

mained  in  it,  he  supposed  her  disappointment   in 
him  to  be  only  natural. 

Friendly  as  they  were,  he  could  never  quite  get 
rid  of  the  feeling  that  the  Darraghs  thought  he 
had  become  a  rather  vulgarly  successful  person. 
This  only  amused  him,  as  did  also  Mary's  critical 
regard  for  his  treatment  of  Lesbia.  Evidently  she 
thought  him  a  masterful  husband.  He  put  this 
down  to  feministic  learnings,  of  which  Lesbia  was 
innocent.  He  said  to  himself  that  Mary  did  not 
understand  boon- fellowship  between  husband  and 
wife,  and  he  was  always  half  hoping  that  she  would 
say  or  do  something  to  enable  him  to  have  it  out 
with  her.  They  still  sparred.  Her  actual  com- 
ments were  never  more  than  humorous.  One 
afternoon  when  he  joined  the  three  as  they  sat 
in  their  favorite  place  in  the  Court,  and  greeted 
Lesbia  rather  boisterously,  Mary  spoke  of  his 
"  Buss  me,  Kate  "  manner.  Darragh  seized  upon 
the  phrase  with  delight,  and  made  a  drawing  of 
George  as  Bluff  King  Hal.  But  many  people  were 
inclined  to  think  him  exuberant.  Tom  Burchell, 
for  example,  who  had  succeeded  Doctor  Fleetwood, 
asserted  that  George  was  an  early  G.  P.  He  would 
solemnly  tap  his  knees,  compare  his  pupils,  and 
make  him  repeat  compromising  polysyllables. 


THE  CATFISH  379 

As  yet  the  Darraghs  had  no  children,  not,  ap- 
parently, to  their  serious  disappointment.  They 
were  poor,  they  moved  about  a  great  deal,  and  all 
their  habits  were  undomestic.  But  Mary  was  de- 
voted to  George's  eldest  little  girl,  Barbara.  When 
she  was  at  Bourneside  the  two  were  inseparable 
and  Lesbia  declared  that  she  would  leave  the  child's 
moral  education  to  Mary.  This,  though  humor- 
ously said,  caused  George  some  slight  irritation. 
Lesbia,  though  charmingly  indolent,  was  not  lazy 
or  neglectful,  but  in  the  presence  of  Mary  she  af- 
fected an  exaggerated  hedonism  —  as  if  conscious 
of  overwhelming  competition  in  opposite  virtues. 
Sometimes  George  wondered  if  his  old  quarrel  with 
Mary  was  going  to  be  fought  out  over  Barbara. 

Meanwhile  his  worldly  affairs  had  prospered. 
Tracy's  had  sent  out  branches  into  all  the  prin- 
cipal towns  in  the  Western  counties,  and  its  im- 
portance as  a  commercial  organization  was  now 
recognized  to  be  a  definite  factor  in  local  politics. 
Any  speculative  proposal  for  the  benefit  of  trade 
or  agriculture  had  to  pass  the  standard  of 
Tracy's.  It  compelled  the  mere  financier  to 
show  something  more  solid  than  a  promising  pros- 
pectus, while,  on  the  other  hand,  it  anticipated  the 
benefits  to  be  derived  from  combinations  among 


38o  THE  CATFISH 

actual  producers.  With  a  fair  market  in  every 
important  center,  and  a  convenient  system  of  col- 
lection by  road  motors,  there  was  no  inducement 
to  cooperative  proposals. 

As  yet  George  kept  everything  in  his  own  hands, 
with  no  ostensible  object  but  the  profit  to  be  de- 
rived from  his  enterprise.  A  certain  percentage  of 
profit  was  divided  by  scale  among  the  staff  and 
those  who  supplied  the  material;  but,  except  that 
every  suggestion  was  welcomed  and  considered  in 
council  with  heads  of  departments,  nobody  shared 
in  the  general  direction  of  policy.  George  began 
to  see,  however,  that  if  he  were  to  go  forward,  and 
particularly  if  he  were  to  carry  out  any  of  his  more 
speculative  ideas,  which  involved  building,  such  as 
a  repertory  theater,  a  concert  hall  and  an  art  gal- 
lery, he  must  either  issue  shares  among  those  who 
were  practically  interested  in  Tracy's,  or  invite 
capital  from  outside.  In  either  case  there  would 
have  to  be  a  division  of  control. 

The  Barstow  premises  he  had  already  rebuilt. 
Ledward  was  the  architect.  When  George  first 
discussed  the  matter  with  him,  Ledward  talked 
rather  indifferently  about  styles.  What  was  Tracy's 
idea;  Renaissance,  Neo-Classic,  Queen  Anne  or 
what? 


THE  CATFISH  381 

"  The  shop  style,"  said  George. 

"  I  suppose  you  know  that  there  aren't  any  ex- 
amples ?  "  said  Ledward,  eying  him  with  interest. 

"  Well,  there's  your  chance,"  said  George.  "  I 
give  you  a  free  hand,  on  condition  that  you  build 
me  a  place  in  which  nothing  is  considered  but  the 
practical  needs  of  a  modern  shop.  I  don't  want  a 
temple  or  a  palace  or  a  town  hall.  I  want  a  shop, 
and  I  want  it  to  look  like  a  shop  and  nothing  but 
a  shop.  At  the  same  time,  if  you  don't  think  that 
a  place  can  be  savagely  a  shop  and  still  the  most 
beautiful  building  in  the  world,  you'd  better  think 
it  over  before  you  agree  to  take  on  the  job." 

"  Don't  you  worry  about  that,"  said  Ledward. 
"  I  was  afraid  you  wanted  another  striking  example 
of  modern  commercial  architecture  in  the  some- 
thing-or-other-style." 

He  said  that  though  there  were  no  shops  in 
England,  he  thought  he  could  get  a  few  hints  from 
Germany.  The  result  not  only  satisfied  George, 
but  made  the  beginning  of  Ledward's  reputation. 
People  said  that  he  had  reconciled  use  and  beauty. 
He  said  that  all  the  howlers  he  had  ever  seen  were 
the  result  of  the  purely  modern  superstition  that 
they  were  not  the  same  thing. 

Now,  of  course,  Ledward  was  keen  to  build  a 


382  THE  CATFISH 

theater  in  the  theater  style,  and  a  concert  hall  in 
the  concert-hall  style,  and  an  art  gallery  in  the  art- 
gallery  style.  Also  the  duchess  was  interested. 
George  recognized  her  moral  value,  but  was  not  so 
sure  about  her  artistic  ideas,  which  were  rather  ex- 
clusively modern.  She  wanted  to  startle  people; 
he  wanted  to  give  them  the  plays  and  the  music 
and  the  pictures  that  they  wanted  without  arousing 
their  suspicions.  If  he  let  in  the  duchess  —  the 
duke,  he  understood,  was  at  her  command  —  he 
would  have  to  consider  her  tastes. 

Altogether,  he  perceived  that  he  was  now  ap- 
proaching a  crisis  in  his  career.  Having  proved 
his  ability  as  a  business  man,  he  was  receiving 
friendly  pressure  from  several  directions.  Subject 
to  a  finger  in  the  pie,  he  could  have  what  money  he 
wanted  for  the  asking,  and  the  local  authorities  were 
more  than  cordial  to  his  ideas.  But  the  strongest 
pressure  toward  extending  his  activities  at  some 
cost  of  individual  freedom  came  from  inside 
Tracy's  itself.  Some  time  ago  George  had  found 
that  the  financial  side  of  the  business  was  getting 
more  than  he  could  manage  without  limiting  his 
more  practical  energies.  His  instinct  for  the  right 
man  sent  him  to  Shelmerdine.  Since  Burroughs 
and  Tracy's  Bank  had  lost  its  identity  in  the  larger 


THE  CATFISH  383 

personal  concern,  he  had  no  sentimental  scruples 
against  approaching  Shelmerdine,  who  was  now 
cashier  at  Exeter,  and  he  secured  him  as  financial 
manager  of  Tracy's. 

Shelmerdine  had  the  characteristics  of  his  race. 
He  knew  everything  about  prices ;  nothing  whatever 
about  values.  Without  a  fluctuating  margin  cre- 
ated by  the  lapses  between  supply  and  demand,  the 
Jew  would  starve  in  the  midst  of  plenty;  value 
must  be  translated  into  price  before  he  becomes 
aware  of  its  existence.  In  his  own  department 
Shelmerdine  was  admirable;  he  found  good  invest- 
ments for  spare  capital,  checked  waste,  and  en- 
couraged punctuality  in  the  settlement  of  accounts 
with  both  producers  and  customers.  But  he  could 
not  be  trusted  outside  the  handling  of  accounts. 
He  was  unable  to  distinguish  between  what  people 
wanted  and  what  they  could  be  induced  to  buy, 
and  his  only  test  of  capacity  in  subordinates  was 
"  smartness,"  which  meant  skill  in  evading  the  cus- 
tomer's demand,  so  that  his  influence  in  the  sale- 
rooms was  always  demoralizing.  He  had  to  be 
kept  severely  chained  to  his  office. 

Here  George  found  him  stimulating  and  amusing. 
Shelmerdine  was  full  of  ideas  —  always  ideas  for 
making  money  breed  money.  On  the  other  hand, 


384  THE  CATFISH 

he  had  the  racial  instinct  for  reading  other  people's 
desires  and  pandering  to  them.  He  would  talk  to 
George  by  the  hour  about  his  "grand  schemes," 
which  he  evidently  saw  in  terms  of  gilt  and  plush. 
"  Very  nice  little  theater  you  could  have  down  here. 
I  tell  you  the  Empire  would  be  a  fool  to  it.  But 
of  course  you  want  capital.  Now  I  know  a 
party  — " 

George  knew  perfectly  well  that,  so  far  as  the 
theater  was  concerned,  Shelmerdine,  though  scrupu- 
lously honest  and  loyal  to  Tracy's,  was  only 
playing  up  to  him.  He  would  have  talked  with 
the  same  enthusiasm  if  George  had  proposed  a 
"  line  "  in  cheap  jewelry  or  bogus  old  masters.  He 
recognized  that  George  had  the  gift  of  creating 
prices,  and  he  could  not  be  happy  until  it  was  fully 
exploited.  His  motive  was  not  personal  gain  but 
abstract  reverence  for  profit.  But  though  George 
knew  that  Shelmerdine  approached  the  business 
from  what  in  his  own  opinion  was  the  wrong  end, 
he  had  great  faith  in  his  financial  judgment,  and 
little  by  little  he  was  losing  his  acute  sense  of  the 
difference  between  financial  and  commercial  enter- 
prise. After  all,  capital  was  a  sort  of  raw  material. 
You  couldn't  do  really  big  things  without  it.  And 
so  far  as  the  division  of  control  was  concerned,  it 


THE  CATFISH  385 

was  only  a  matter  of  Tracy's,  Limited,  instead  of 
Tracy's.  He  would  still  be  managing  director. 

George  got  into  the  way  of  writing  "  Tracy's, 
Limited,"  on  blotting  paper,  to  see  how  it  looked. 
Undoubtedly  it  meant  that  Tracy  would  be  limited. 
Sometimes  he  consented  to  meet  the  parties  who, 
either  directly  or  through  Shelmerdine,  had  ex- 
pressed a  desire  to  put  money  into  Tracy's.  He 
would  like  to  get  an  idea  of  how  far  Tracy  would 
be  limited.  Often,  though  not  always,  the  par- 
ties were  of  the  conquering  race.  Generally  they 
were  already  Somebody,  Limited,  and  their  precise 
hobby,  whether  coal,  iron,  motor-cars  or  tin  mines, 
was  always  the  least  part  of  their  conversation.  It 
was  in  the  character  of  promoters  that  they  ad- 
dressed themselves  to  him.  They  were  always  im- 
mensely complimentary  about  Tracy's  —  as  far 
as  it  went.  Whenever  the  question  of  control 
came  up,  they  said  in  effect :  "  Don't  you  make 
any  mistake  about  that,  Mr.  Tracy.  We  recognize 
business  talent  when  we  see  it.  Our  only  anxiety 
is  to  extend  your  opportunities,  with,  of  course,  a 
reasonable  return  upon  our  capital." 

At  last  there  came  a  proposal  that  was  too  im- 
portant in  its  bearings  to  be  treated  in  anything 
but  a  practical  spirit.  Mr.  Pope,  the  managing 


386  THE  CATFISH 

director  of  Sherlock's,  Limited,  the  biggest  depart- 
ment store  in  London,  asked  for  an  interview.  He 
came  and  talked  very  frankly.  Sherlock's  had 
branches  in  Liverpool  and  Manchester  and  in  most 
of  the  important  towns  in  the  Midlands.  So 
far  they  had  not  touched  the  West  of  England, 
and  they  were  prepared  to  admit  that  Tracy's  had 
got  ahead  of  them  there.  Tracy's  methods  were 
not  theirs,  but  there  could  be  no  doubt  that,  with  a 
certain  class  of  customer,  Tracy's  filled  the  bill. 
That  class  of  customer,  in  greater  or  smaller  num- 
bers, existed  everywhere.  Properly  backed,  there 
was  room  for  Tracy's  in  every  town  in  the  king- 
dom, even  in  London  itself. 

That  was  the  proposition.  So  far  from  wishing 
to  alter  the  character  or  policy  of  Tracy's,  it 
would  be  to  the  interest  of  Sherlock's  to  preserve 
its  independence.  In  London,  at  any  rate,  Sher- 
lock's and  Tracy's  would  appeal  to  different 
publics.  They  overlapped,  of  course,  but  the  re- 
sults of  the  overlapping  would  be  for  the  common 
benefit.  On  the  other  hand,  if  Mr.  Tracy  did  not 
see  his  way  to  the  amalgamation  of  interests  — 
well,  even  in  the  West  of  England  there  were  pick- 
ings for  Sherlock's. 

George  liked  the  man  and   recognized   the  im- 


THE  CATFISH  387 

portance  of  his  proposal.  The  capital  suggested 
would  enable  him  to  start  building  his  theater  at 
once  —  and  Pope  emphasized  the  point  that  he 
would  be  left  with  a  free  hand  in  that  direction. 
"  We  treat  you  as  the  Barstow  development  branch 
of  our  business,"  he  said. 

Faced  with  the  necessity  for  a  speedy  and  vital 
decision  —  three  weeks  was  the  time  agreed  upon 
—  George  found  that  the  two  halves  of  him  had 
taken  sides.  On  the  one  side  were  reason,  policy 
and  ambition ;  on  the  other  nothing  but  a  prejudice. 
It  might  be  expressed  in  the  boyish  axiom :  "  You 
get  good  out  of  things  in  proportion  as  you  do 
not  use  them  for  any  ulterior  purpose." 

He  felt  as  if  all  his  life  he*had  been  dodging 
this  crisis.  He  was  up  against  himself;  he  had  to 
decide  whether  to  obey  reason  or  instinct.  The 
more  he  looked  into  it,  the  more  clearly  he  saw 
that  the  instinct  or  prejudice,  or  whatever  it 
might  be  called,  was  connected  with  the  deeper 
unexplained  part  of  his  nature;  the  part  that  he 
had  never  shared  with  anybody.  For  that  reason 
nobody  could  help  him.  If  he  talked  to  Lesbia 
about  his  misgivings,  he  would  be  talking  a  lan- 
guage that  she  did  not  understand.  Whenever  he 
did  ask  her  opinion  she  said :  "  I  want  you  to 


388  THE  CATFISH 

please  yourself,"  and  he  knew  that  she  would  be 
absolutely  loyal  to  his  choice.  Bothered  as  he  was, 
he  recognized  the  humor,  the  poetic  justice  of  the 
situation.  He  had  nobody  to  confide  in  but  a 
landscape.  He  was  reduced  to  the  imbecility  of 
saying  to  the  Waterfall :  "  Well,  what  do  you 
think  about  it,  Old  Growler?"  But,  now  that 
he  had  domesticated  the  inspiration  of  his  boy- 
hood, he  could  not  distinguish  whether  the  Water- 
fall said  "Doom!"  or  "Boom!" 

During  the  interval  the  Darraghs  came  down 
in  fulfilment  of  an  old  arrangement  with  Miles  to 
paint  some  panels  for  the  living-room.  Ironically, 

the  motive  of  the  series  was  to  be  the  Bourne. 

• 

George  half  wished  that  their  visit  could  have 
been  postponed.  He  felt  that  the  Darraghs  would 
be  on  the  side  of  his  prejudice,  but  would  be 
kept  from  speaking  frankly  by  the  implied  criticism 
of  the  rest  of  his  affairs.  In  their  opinion  he 
was  already  on  the  wrong  tack.  That,  so  far  as 
Miles  was  concerned,  appeared  to  be  the  case; 
when  George  talked  to  him  about  the  proposal  he 
said  that  he  didn't  see  that  it  made  much  difference. 
George  would  have  a  free  hand  and  fuller  oppor- 
tunities, wouldn't  he?  George  felt  rather  irritably 
that  the  point  was  whether  or  not  he  would  have 


THE  CATFISH  389 

a  free  soul.  Mary  refused  to  be  drawn.  Ostensi- 
bly she  agreed  with  Lesbia  that  he  ought  to  please 
himself.  The  difference  was  —  and  it  came  to  him 
with  a  shock  —  that  while  Lesbia  didn't  know 
which  was  himself,  Mary  emphatically  did.  Lesbia 
spoke  in  good  faith;  Mary  did  not.  He  felt  the 
lurking  humor  in  her  eyes  whenever  the  subject 
was  discussed  in  her  presence.  He  had  never  be- 
fore understood  so  plainly  that  Mary  and  Mary 
alone  had  the  key  to  the  side  door  of  his  nature. 
He  had  come  to  the  limit  of  Miles's  understanding 
of  him,  but  not  to  the  limit  of  hers. 

She  was  the  only  person  in  the  world  who  could 
tell  him  what  he  really  wanted.  He  perceived  the 
irony  of  the  fact  that  he  had  never  applied  to 
himself  the  principle  that  had  brought  him  suc- 
cess in  dealing  with  other  people.  When  he  asked 
himself  the  reason  why  he  had  not,  the  answer 
was :  "  Mary."  Before  he  could  be  straight  with 
himself  he  must  have  it  out  with  her  —  and  all  his 
life  he  had  shirked  it. 

As  the  four  of  them  sat  in  the  living-room,  after 
dinner,  it  came  to  him  suddenly  that  it  was  absurd 
and  exasperating  that  a  woman  with  whom  he  was 
not  in  love  should  so  dominate  his  thoughts. 
They  had  been  talking  about  Sherlock's,  and  Mary's 


390  THE  CATFISH 

attitude,  as  she  lay  back  in  her  chair  with  clasped 
hands  and  an  ironical  light  in  her  eyes,  got  on 
his  nerves.  He  contrasted  her  with  Lesbia,  so 
perfectly  content  to  accept  his  judgment  as  the  best 
in  the  world.  Kate  Flanders  had  made  for  Mary 
a  wonderful  gown  of  black  and  gold,  and  Les- 
bia had  christened  her  "The  Noble  Snake";  and, 
looking  at  her  now,  George  said  to  himself  that 
if  he  didn't  look  out  she  would  be  a  serpent  in  his 
Eden.  He  got  up  and  said  bruskly: 

"  Come  up  into  the  Orchard,  Mary." 

Lesbia,  who  was  lying  on  a  couch,  heaved  a  sigh 
of  relief  and  said:  "Yes,  take  him  away,  Mary, 
and  talk  to  him  like  a  mother.  Miles  and  I  will 
be  much  happier  without  you." 

Mary  laughed,  and  got  up  slowly.  Clanking  a 
little  as  she  moved,  she  went  over  and  stood  by 
the  couch,  looking  down  at  Lesbia  with  an  expres- 
sion that  George,  in  his  irritable  mood,  supposed 
he  ought  to  call  "  enigmatic."  Then  Mary  stooped 
and  kissed  Lesbia,  and  with  a  sudden  thrill  of  ex- 
citement he  knew  that  he  was  going  to  have  it  out 
with  Mary  at  last. 

It  was  May,  and  the  wide  entrance  was  open, 
letting  the  light  across  the  flagged  Court  and  up 
the  steps  beyond.  As  they  went  up  them,  he  ob- 


THE  CATFISH  391 

served  half  consciously  that  Mary  had  to  adapt  her 
natural  movement  to  the  shallowness  of  the  rise. 
They  did  not  speak  until  they  were  past  the  tennis- 
courts  and  under  the  blossoming  apple  boughs. 
Then  he  said :  "  What  am  I  to  do  about  this?  " 

"  You  know  you  hate  it,"  she  said  quietly. 

"  You  said  that  when  I  killed  my  first  trout," 
he  said,  with  a  vivid  picture  of  the  occasion.  "  But 
I  went  on  killing  'em,"  he  added,  after  a  pause. 

"Am  I  to  have  nothing?"  she  said. 

He  was  about  to  say:  "What  do  you  want?" 
but  that,  in  the  atmosphere  created  by  her  tone, 
seemed  dishonest,  and  he  said  rather  bitterly: 
"  It  seems  to  me,  Mary,  that  you've  got  pretty  well 
all  that  matters." 

She  laughed  and  said :  "  I've  got  Miles."  He 
was  glad  to  hear  her  laugh.  He  knew  that  every- 
thing had  to  be  said  now,  and  it  was  better  that  it 
should  be  said  lightly. 

"And  I've  got  Lesbia,"  he  said. 

"And  there  isn't  a  shadow  of  regret,"  she  said, 
as  if  to  close  that  side  of  the  subject.  "  Though," 
ishe  added,  "  there's  just  one  thing  I  ought  to  tell 
you.  Miles  knew." 

"Knew  what?" 

"That  I  waited  for  you." 


392  THE  CATFISH 

The  pang  he  felt  was  entirely  for  Lesbia,  because 
he  had  not  been  equally  honest  with  her.  But  how 
was  he  to  know? 

"  You  do  things  royally  when  you  begin,"  he  said 
despairingly. 

"  So,"  said  Mary,  in  a  matter-of-fact  tone,  as  if 
she  had  not  heard  his  last  remark,  "  we  have  only 
ourselves  to  reckon  with." 

"  Let  us  have  it  clear,"  he  said.  "  That  day  in 
the  train,  going  down  to  Holmhurst?" 

"  I  was  desperate,"  she  said  with  a  little  laugh. 

"I  can  explain  all  that,"  he  said,  as  if  he  were 
alluding  to  an  old  quarrel,  "  but  go  on." 

"Could  there  be  anything  more?"  she  said  in 
an  ironical  tone.  "  Except  that  I  waited  to  see 
you  with  your  wife,"  she  added  quietly. 

It  was  the  reverse  of  vanity  that  made  him  say : 
"And  if?" 

"  Yes,  my  friend,"  she  said  dryly,  "  if  you  had 
needed  me.  But  I  saw  that  she  was  dear  and  good 
and  would  make  you  happy  —  and  the  rest  you 
know." 

"  I'm  glad  it  was  Miles,"  was  all  he  could  find 
to  say. 

"  Now,"  she  said,  with  a  little  gasping  laugh  of 
relief,  as  she  turned  and  faced  him,  "  don't  you 


THE  CATFISH  393 

think  I've  earned  some  explanation?  There  are 
some  things  that  even  the  most  immodest  woman 
(doesn't  quite  understand." 

Until  now  it  had  been  more  easy  than  he  could 
have  believed,  but  now  he  hesitated. 

"  There  was  a  woman,"  he  said  like  a  schoolboy, 
and  feeling  that  it  was  not  more  than  a  schoolboy 
confession. 

"Did  you  love  her?"  she  asked  quickly. 

"No,"  he  said. 

"  Then  I  still  don't  understand,"  she  said  merci- 
lessly. 

"  And  they  told  me  that  —  that  you  would  never 
marry  anybody,"  he  blurted  out. 

"They?" 

"The  Raymonds,"  he  said,  using  the  plural  to 
make  it  clearer. 

"  Ah !  "  she  said  softly.  "  I  thought  there  was 
a  stupidity  somewhere.  So  it  was  I  who  was  to 
blame  after  all.  Forgive  me;  I  was  immodest. 
But  there  were  reasons,  as  you  might  have  guessed. 
However  —  be  very  wise  with  your  son,  George." 

They  moved  on  under  the  apple  boughs  with  the 
long  wet  grass  brushing  their  feet.  He  thought  of 
the  two  in  the  lighted  room  behind  them  without 
any  sense  of  disloyalty.  It  was  as  if  he  and  Mary 


394  THE  CATFISH 

were  paying  a  debt  long  due  to  them.  In  a  few 
minutes  they  had  cleared  up  the  problems  of  nearly 
half  a  lifetime.  Her  husband  and  his  wife  would 
be  safer  than  before.  With  only  mild  interest  he 
recognized  that  the  first  question  he  had  asked 
Mary  was  already  answered.  It  seemed  ridiculous 
that  there  had  ever  been  such  a  question.  So  easy 
was  it,  when  one  paid  one's  debts. 

"  But  this  offer  of  Sherlock's,  you  know,"  he 
said  out  of  curiosity  to  know  her  reason,  "  why 
exactly  mustn't  I  ?  " 

"  Because  you  hate  it,"  she  said. 
"  Yes,  of  course,"  he  said,  "  but  isn't  there  some 
notion  that  it  would  confirm  something  that  you 
already  consider  mistaken  ?  " 

"  I  thought  so  at  first,"  she  admitted,  "  and  so 
did  Miles.  But  not  now.  Tracy's  is  you.  The 
other  wouldn't  be.  I  don't  pretend  to  have  thought 
it  out;  I  don't  know  enough  about  business.  My 
own  idea  is  that  we're  coming  to  the  end  of  busi- 
ness, but  while  it's  here  it  must  be  done  faithfully. 
You've  taught  me  that." 

It  was  his  own  idea  of  his  father  and  the  land 
over  again.  She  looked  a  little  farther  ahead,  that 
was  all. 

"  Anyhow,  I  can't  go  back  to  Tracy's/'  he  said. 


THE  CATFISH  395 

"Of  course  you  can't,"  she  said,  "you'll  go  on 
and  on.  It  may  turn  to  something  more  definitely 
public-spirited  or  it  may  not.  It  doesn't  seem  to 
me  to  matter  so  long  as  it's  you.  You  might  be  a 
dictator  or  you  might  be  a  servant  of  servants. 
The  one  thing  that  you  couldn't  be,  and  remain 
you,  is  —  what  do  you  call  it?  —  chairman  of 
directors." 

It  was  so  amusing  to  have  her  putting  into 
words  things  that  had  bothered  him  since  childhood, 
that  he  would  have  been  glad  to  let  her  run  on. 
But  she  said :  "  Don't  let  us  waste  our  time. 
Let's  talk  about  ourselves." 

They  had  reached  the  top  end  of  the  Orchard  and 
leaned  on  the  low  wall,  as  he  and  his  father  had 
leaned  years  and  years  ago. 

"  The  way  I  work  it  out,"  he  said,  "  is  that  you're 
the  —  how  shall  I  put  it?  —  the  imperative." 

" '  Rapturous  new  name,'  "  she  quoted  ironically. 

"  Well,  I'm  not  a  bit  in  love  with  you,"  he  said 
stoutly. 

"  Oh,  I've  hated  you  for  years  and  years,"  she 
said. 

"Upon  my  word,"  he  exclaimed,  as  if  she  had 
given  him  an  idea.  "  I  believe  there's  a  lot  of  hate 
mixed  up  with  it." 


396  THE  CATFISH 

"  Never  mind  what  it  is,  my  child,"  she  said, 
lightly  touching  his  hand  as  it  lay  on  the  wall. 
"  It  is ;  and  we've  got  to  put  up  with  it.  Tell  me 
about  the  Servian  princess  and  the  Camp  and  your 
mother.  Most  of  all  about  your  mother.  A 
woman,  even  a  happy  wife,  does  like  to  know,  you 
know." 

It  was  easier  than  he  would  have  supposed  even 
to  talk  about  his  mother.  He  was  talking  to  him- 
self—  the  self  that  until  now  he  had  kept  in  a 
sort  of  Coventry  of  woods  and  waters.  She  lis- 
tened, with  an  occasional  question  or  comment, 
piecing  together  what  he  told  her  with  what  she 
already  surprisingly  knew.  Once  he  knew  that  she 
was  crying  silently,  though  when  she  spoke  again 
it  was  lightly  to  say: 

"  You  were  a  close-fisted  little  monkey,  but  after 
all,  she  didn't  understand  you  as  I  did  from  the 
very  first." 

His  ideas  about  the  Bourne  interested  her  ex- 
tremely. When  he  spoke  of  the  way  he  had  got 
back  on  the  Waterfall  by  making  it  light  his  home 
she  was  a  little  disturbed. 

"  I  say,"  she  said,  "  I'm  not  superstitious,  but 
isn't  that  rather  reckless  ?  " 


THE  CATFISH  397 

"  He  roars  as  gently  as  any  sucking  dove,"  he 
said. 

"  I  don't  think  your  Old  Growler  altogether  ap- 
proves of  me,"  she  said,  looking  in  that  direction. 
"  Listen  to  him ! " 

"  There's  been  a  good  deal  of  rain  this  spring, 
and  the  river  is  very  full,"  he  said.  "We  had  a 
little  trouble  with  the  engine  last  week." 

"What  if  the  light  went  out,"  said  Mary  re- 
flectively, "  and  then  he  came  stalking,  stalking." 

"Don't  be  silly,"  he  said,  and  wished  that  she 
would  come  away.  But  she  went  on: 

"  What's  that  little  pale  wood  —  against  the  dark 
one,  where  the  ground  rises  ?  " 

"  The  dark  one  "  was  the  Grove.  Somehow  he 
had  not  been  able  to  tell  even  Mary  about  the  Grove. 
But  he  would  take  her  there.  Meanwhile  he  ex- 
plained that  the  "  little  pale  wood  "  was  a  scrap 
of  orchard  at  the  edge  of  Gardiner's  field. 

"Why  did  you  leave  it  untouched?"  she  said  in- 
terestedly. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know,"  he  said  like  a  schoolboy. 

Mary  laughed  and  said:  "You  dear  thing,  of 
course  you  don't.  But  I  do,  and  if  I  wanted  any 
proof  that  you  are  still  you  I  should  point  to  that. 


398  THE  CATFISH 

I  shall  call  it  '  Naboth's  Orchard.'  Miles  wants  to 
paint  blossom.  I  shall  send  him  there  —  he'll  love 
the  story.  Don't  tell  me  any  more  —  let's  go  back 
to  them." 

There  were  many  things  that  he  wanted  to  ask 
her,  but  he  knew  that  her  mood  was  over.  He 
knew,  also,  that  before  they  returned  he  might  have 
taken  her  in  his  arms  and  kissed  her.  She  would 
have  acquiesced,  but  she  would  have  been  a  little 
disappointed  at  his  thinking  it  necessary. 
-  Easy  and  natural  as  the  experience  had  been, 
he  was  a  little  astonished  at  his  own  lack  of  self- 
consciousness  on  joining  "  them "  again.  From 
Miles's  expression,  friendly  though  grave,  George 
surmised  that  he  knew  that  something  had  been 
said  that  had  to  be  said.  But  Lesbia  was  entirely 
innocent. 

<  "  Thought  you'd  eloped,"  she  said.  "  Have  you 
settled  the  business  of  the  nation  ?  " 

"We've  settled  Sherlock's  hash,"  said  George. 

"  I  believe  you're  right,"  said  Lesbia ;  and  Miles 
said,  "  I'm  jolly  glad." 


CHAPTER  XXI 

AT  breakfast  they  were  all  unusually  gay. 
It  was  as  if  they  said  with  a  new  meaning, 
"  Come,  let  us  be  friends  now."  So  far  as  George 
knew,  except  between  him  and  Mary  nothing  had 
been  said,  but  a  new  affection  was  in  the  air.  The 
general  tone  of  their  mood  was  conveyed  in  Miles's 
announcement  that  he  was  going  down  to  paint  pink 
blossom  against  falling  water. 

They  all  made  a  great  deal  of  Barbara.  K 
might  have  been  a  festival  in  her  honor,  and  the 
child  was  just  old  enough  to  feel  the  attention  and 
to  say  things  that  gave  pretext  for  laughter  that 
might  otherwise  have  seemed  to  betray  emotional 
instability  —  an  April  rather  than  a  May  mood  on 
the  part  of  three  of  the  people  concerned.  The 
child  seemed  strangely  important. 

Only  Lesbia  was  quite  serene.  If  she  were 
aware  that  more  than  Sherlock's  hash  had  been 
settled  the  night  before,  she  was  contented  with 
that  result.  She  hated  problems  of  any  sort,  and 

399 


400  THE  CATFISH 

George's  recovery  from  his  recent  irritation  was 
more  than  enough  to  please  her  loyal  heart. 

After  breakfast  Miles  set  off  to  paint  blossom, 
and  Mary  and  Barbara  accompanied  him.  They 
would  sit  by  the  Waterfall  and  play  ducks  and 
drakes  — "  and  water-thnakes,"  as  Barbara  kept 
insisting,  with  a  shake  of  Mary's  hand. 

George  had  writing  to  do.  From  the  window 
of  his  room  under  one  of  the  gables  he  watched 
them  go  up  the  Orchard,  Miles  and  Mary  each 
holding  one  of  Barbara's  hands.  The  day  was 
blue  and  windy  and  the  blossom  was  already  adrift. 
In  "  Naboth's  Orchard,"  under  the  lee  of  Gar- 
diner's field,  it  would  be  firmer  and  pinker  — 
better  for  Miles's  purpose  he  supposed.  He  was 
glad  he  had  kept  "  Naboth's  Orchard  " ;  the  panel 

—  for  Miles  had  "  seen  "  in  rose  and  silver  just  the 
Bourne  subject  he  wanted  to  complete  the  series 

—  would  be  a  permanent  record  of  the  clearing  up 
in    friendship.     Picturing   to   himself   how    Miles 
would  do  it,  George  felt  that  he  would  be  able  to 
read  all  sorts  of  things  into  the  panel.     The  con- 
trast  between   the    frail   blossom   and   the   heavy 
water  would  suggest  the  taming  of  Old  Growler. 
Also  the  panel  would  remind  him  of  the  duffer  who 
had  made  him  relinquish  in  childhood  the  side  of 


THE  CATFISH  401 

life  that  Miles  and  Mary  represented.  How,  when 
he  came  to  think  of  it,  everything  in  his  life  had 
worked  out  for  the  best. 

That  everything  had  worked  out  for  the  best 
between  him  and  Mary  he  had  no  shadow  of  doubt. 
His  remark  overnight  that  he  was  not  a  bit  in  love 
with  her  had  been  uttered  in  all  sincerity.  Nor  did 
he  believe  that  she  was  or  had  been  in  love  with 
him.  The  relation  between  them  was  not  that. 
It  was  something  beyond  love,  and  it  left  them 
both  free  to  love  elsewhere.  He  could  not  find 
a  word  for  the  relation,  but  since  last  night  he  had 
found  a  better  name  for  her  than  the  Imperative. 
It  came  out  of  an  article  he  had  read  a  few  days 
ago  in  a  weekly  newspaper. 

At  one  time  the  North  Sea  fishermen  brought 
their  cod  to  market  in  tanks  in  the  holds  of  their 
vessels.  In  the  tanks  the  cod  lived  at  ease,  with  the 
result  that  they  came  to  market  slack,  flabby  and 
limp.  Some  genius  among  fishermen  introduced 
one  catfish  into  each  of  his  tanks  and  found  that 
his  cod  came  to  market  firm,  brisk  and  wholesome. 
The  article  went  on  to  speak  of  the  world's  catfish 
—  anything  or  anybody  that  introduced  into  life 
the  "  queer,  unpleasant,  disturbing  touch  of  the 
kingdom  of  Heaven." 


402  THE  CATFISH 

Well,  thought  George  amusedly,  Mary  was  his 
Catfish.  She  kept  his  soul  alive.  While  he  was 
writing  his  letters  the  word  kept  coming  into  his 
mind,  and  he  said  to  himself  that  he  must  read  the 
article  again.  He  had  been  working  for  about  an 
hour  when  he  had  the  sense  of  something  unusual 
happening  outside.  He  looked  out  of  the  window 
—  a  man  came  running  down  the  Orchard  with  a 
bundle  in  his  arms. 

George  ran  doiwn-stairs  and  out  of  the  house 
and  met  the  man  at  the  head  of  the  steps.  The 
bundle  was  Barbara,  wet  and  whimpering,  wrapped 
in  a  coat. 

"  The  little  'un's  all  right,  sir,"  cried  the  man, 
"  but  Mrs.  Darragh  —  they're  afraid  she's  dead." 

George  hardly  glanced  at  the  child.  As  he  ran 
up  the  Orchard  his  mind  was  full  of  dreadful 
thoughts.  There  had  always  been  a  strangeness  in 
Mary.  It  was  impossible !  That  horror  was  merci- 
fully short.  At  the  field  he  met  Andrews. 
"Where?"  he  said,  and  Andrews,  turning  to  run 
with  him,  said :  "  At  the  mill ;  they've  sent  for 
Doctor  Burchell,  but  I'm  afraid  it's  no  use."  The 
child  had  fallen  in;  Mary,  calling  to  Miles,  had 
plunged  after  her,  and  Miles  had  saved  the  one  but 
lost  the  other. 


THE  CATFISH  403 

They  had  laid  her  in  that  room  —  now  in  the 
possession  of  decent  old  couple.  When  he  entered 
the  room  they  had  given  her  up.  Burchell  was 
there,  and  he  said  that  she  must  have  been  dead 
when  they  took  her  out  of  the  water.  They  left 
George  and  Miles  alone  with  her.  George  noticed 
for  the  first  time  that  her  hair  was  a  little  gray. 

In  Miles'  face,  as  they  clasped  hands,  he  saw 
grief,  pride  and  a  most  beautiful  compassion. 
With  clairvoyant  mind  he  understood  that  Miles 
was  sorry  for  him  because  it  was  in  saving  Barbara 
that  he  had  lost  Mary.  It  would  have  seemed 
natural  if  Miles  had  said  to  him,  as  he  had  said  to 
Miles  when  he  got  news  of  his  mother's  death,  "  I'm 
sorry,  old  chap."  But  all  that  Miles  said  now  was : 
"  She  should  have  gone  with  the  stream." 

At  the  moment  the  words  conveyed  nothing  to 
him,  but  afterward,  when  he  talked  to  Burchell 
and  the  miller's  man  who  had  run  to  help  Miles, 
they  were  made  plain.  Burdened  with  the  child, 
she  had  exhausted  herself  in  breasting  the  stream. 
It  was  natural  that  she  should  make  this  mistake; 
Below,  a  high  smooth  wall  on  either  side  made 
landing  impossible,  and  beyond  was  the  dark  bridge. 
But  a  few  yards  farther  on  the  deep  swift  current 
slackened  and  broke  against  a  ridge  of  stones, 


404  THE  CATFISH 

thereafter  to  flow  secretly  murmuring  through  the 
Grove.  With  his  second  plunge,  after  throwing 
the  child  on  the  spit  of  land  whence  she  had  fallen, 
Miles  had  been  carried  down  with  Mary  under  the 
bridge  to  an  easy  landing  on  the  stones.  From 
the  room  where  she  now  lay  the  little  window  spied 
upon  the  place  where  she  had  come  to  rest. 

Last  night  he  had  said  to  himself  that  he  would 
take  her  to  the  Grove.  She  had  found  her  way  to 
the  Grove  alone.  What  secret  the  Grove  held  for 
him  was  made  clear,  and  now  the  Bourne  could 
not  hurt  him  any  more. 

If  —  but  the  "  ifs  "  began  with  her  first  narrow 
glance  at  him  in  the  nursery.  Rahab's  window, 
the  panel  which  was  to  record  their  belated  ex- 
planation—  even  her  swift  homing  to  him  in  the 
train  —  were  but  crude  comments  upon  the  central 
infidelity  of  soul  to  soul.  He  had  well  said  that 
he  did  not  love  her.  She  was  love. 

Everything  that  came  after  was  a  separate  little 
comment  upon  the  tangle  of  their  lives.  Later  in 
the  day  he  was  with  Lesbia,  she  thankfully  holding 
the  child  in  her  arms.  Barbara,  unable  to  take  in 
what  had  happened,  but  feeling  that  she  was  the 
heroine,  piped  her  version  of  the  accident.  For  a 


THE  CATFISH  405 

time  she  and  Aunt  Mary  played  together  while 
Uncle  Miles  painted  up  in  the  field.  Then  Aunt 
Mary  sat  down  to  think.  She  kept  smiling  and 
smiling.  George  could  see  her;  while  he  had  sat 
in  his  room  smiling  at  his  notion  of  her  place  in 
his  life,  she  had  sat  there  smiling,  at  what  thoughts 
he  could  never  know.  But  he  was  glad  she  had 
smiled  at  the  end.  Barbara  had  called  to  Aunt 
Mary  once  or  twice,  but  Aunt  Mary  had  only  said, 
"  Don't  go  too  near  the  water,  my  child."  Then 
Barbara  had  seen  a  "  truly  water-thnake  " —  and 
George  could  see  the  rope  of  green  weed  he  had  so 
described  to  the  child  in  jesting  memory  of  his  own 
childhood.  Barbara  knew  she  was  naughty,  and 
she  wouldn't  do  it  again,  but  she  had  got  a  stick 
and  tried  to  hook  out  the  water-snake.  Then  she 
had  tumbled  in. 

Picturing  the  scene,  and  imagining  what  he 
would  have  done,  George  averted  his  eyes  from  the 
child  because  of  a  thought  he  must  not  harbor. 
Lesbia  put  out  her  hand  and  said: 

"  I  know,  dear." 

He  turned  to  her  with  a  broken  word,  and  saw 
in  her  eyes  something  that  he  had  never  seen  there 
before.  To  the  wisdom  of  joy  that  was  always 


406  THE  CATFISH 

hers  was  now  added  that  other  wisdom  of  sorrow 
without  which  their  love  had  remained  imperfect 
It  was  only  then  he  understood  that  Mary  had 
brought  them  together. 


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